New building almost finished

photo: Jennifer McLarty/Victoria Weekend Edition

The head of UVic's medical sciences division, Dr. Oscar Casiro (left), and president Dr. David Turpin look over the plans for the university's new Medical Sciences Building during a recent tour of the facility by Advanced Education Minister Shirley Bond, area MLAs and members of the media. The $12 million, four-storey, 43,000 sq. ft. facility is nearing completion and division staff will move into the building in October. The first 24 students of the Island Medical Program (IMP) will arrive in January 2005. IMP is part of a collaboration of UBC, UNBC and UVic with the province's medical health authorities to nearly double the number of undergraduate medical school spaces in the province by 2010. The new building contains two lecture theatres, a conference room, anatomy lab and multi-purpose lab that can be connected through distributed learning technology to the other medical program facilities at UBC and UNBC.