May 23, 2014 – After the crowd of UF College of Medicine alumni, supporters, faculty, staff and students autographed the orange beam with blue ink, the construction crew lifted the beam to its place of prominence at the front of the future George T. Harrell, M.D. Medical Education Building.

“Today, we celebrate the future. Not just our future home for medical education, but really, the future of medicine,” said UF College of Medicine Dean Michael L. Good, M.D.

The UF College of Medicine’s founding dean, George Harrell, M.D., envisioned the medical school at the center of the health sciences campus, Good said. Harrell realized that collaborative, multi-disciplinary education as well as small-group learning provided the framework for future great physicians. With the construction of the new medical education building, Harrell’s vision comes closer to realization.

“It is a facility built upon a foundation of knowledge, skill and innovation. It brings those essential elements first conceived by Dr. Harrell together with the most technologically advanced teaching and learning tools available today,” Good said. “It is reinforced through our core values of humanism, compassion and patient-centric care.”

The beam signing celebration was held on the site of the new medical education building, located on the north edge of the UF Health Science Center on Newell Drive across from the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute.

The university previously awarded Charles Perry Partners Inc., of Gainesville, a $30.3 million contract to construct the Harrell Medical Education Building. Heery International and Ballinger are designing the facility, which is slated to open in fall 2015.