Learning and Development Centre Opens at UHNBC
MLAs Mike Morris & Shirley Bond help cut the ribbon on the new Learning and Development Centre – photos 250 News
Prince George, B C. – Dignitaries, doctors and members of the health care community gathered today for the opening of the $10.5 million Learning and Development Centre at UHNBC.
Delivered on time and on budget, the provincially funded 14,693 square foot facility provides additional space for Northern Medical Program students pursuing specialty training.
Dr. David Snadden, Senior Executive Dean Education, UBC Faculty of Medicine
It includes a library, seminar rooms, a simulation centre, video conferencing sites and group study areas.
Dr. David Snadden, senior executive dean of education for UBC’S Faculty of Medicine called it the best facility in the province.
“If you look at what we’ve built in the other hospitals, they’ve been more traditional, so typical auditoriums, ” he said. “What we have here is much more flexible, it allows more collaboration between groups of learners. “
Snadden said a good example of that flexibility is what one sees in the newly built seminar rooms.
“If you go into the big auditorium here, you’ll see there are tables. Those tables all fold and they turn into group learning collaboration areas. So it’s the flexibility that makes the difference.”
So what’s next on the wish list?
“I don’t know what’s next. I think the next pieces are probably more about how we begin to develop the hospital as a regional centre in northern, B.C.,” he said. “Certainly I would want to see more health professional training coming to the North, so on the educational side, that’s what I’d be more interested in.”
Dr. Robert Tower, a recent graduate of the Northern Medical Program, added the new building will help attract future doctors to Prince George.
Dr. Heather Siemens and Dr. Robert Tower demonstrate simulator equipment
“Medical students have to be attracted to come to a program and they have the choice of excellent programs all across North America. So when you come and visit, it’s often that first impression that informs the decision you are going to make,” he said.
“So when you see facilities like this, you think first of all that you’re going to have a good experience, but you also know the administrative people behind these kinds of buildings are interested in your program and so it makes you want to become a part of it.”
Classes are expected to begin in the new facility during the current summer semester.
Comments
On time and on budget? 1365 sq ft. for $10.5 million. You must be kidding. Maybe the floors are made of gold? Mike needs dress clothes.
“1365 sq ft. for $10.5 million. You must be kidding. Maybe the floors are made of gold?”
That probably includes new medical equipment, etc.
Likely a 0 is missing or it should be in Square metres. Off by a factor of 10.
However, even at that it is expensive. Then there is the cost of the parking configuration on Edmonton to make room for the lost spaces due to the building, and since it is added onto an existing building, there might be some demolition and renovation included there as well.
$7,692/sm … these are not operating rooms.
The is the joy of it being a P3 development. You, the tax payer, pay even more for the basic government buildings that are required. The developers make a fortune, often providing a building with flaws and then given a bonus contract to operate said building, in the interest of the public. Then the government even creates a special ministry to tell us all how great P3’s are. Course they won’t release the actual books for the projects for them to be audited, so you can only believe in what they say. Do some research on P3’s and you quickly discover why a building costs so much now a days.
Look…a Mike Morris sighting! I was starting to believe he was a legend, like Ogopogo and a vehicle driving in PG without rock chips!
My biggest concern is that even with the much ballyhooed Northern Medical Program, most communities in the North are short of doctors. Ft St John is short at least 6 doctors, Ft St James has to close ER, McBride and Quesnel are advertising. How much is this program costing if they cant even fill the vacancies existing? How many grads are using this as a stepping stone to go to a specialist program in the Lower Mainland and Okanagan. Until we get these answers, why are we building these super expensive buildings?
And until we solve the doctor shortage, should we be building pipelines and Site C if there isnt enough doctors to cover a major accident and no reliable air service to get people to other places of treatment?????
Time to replace the aging PGRH facility. Now that would be a project I could get behind as it is obvious that they have outgrown that space.
@lunarcomPG
Where does it say this project is a P3?
Or are you just spouting off trying to taint this project?
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