More than a year in the making and with the generous support of our community, the new Mercy Health – St. Rita’s Medical Education Building officially opens.
On Thursday, June 17. St. Rita’s hosted a ribbon cutting and blessing to celebrate the opening of this new Graduate Medical Education (GME) Center. The new education center is a modern, 48,000-square-foot center on the southeast corner of Market and Collett Streets that will house training and education space as well as the most advanced medical training tools and technology.
Thanks to the generous support of local donors and Mercy Health, the building is will serve as an example of St. Rita’s investment in bringing highly trained health care providers to the region.
“What began more than three years ago with the creation of comprehensive residency programs is continuing today with the opening of a building dedicated to the further education of our health care providers,” said Ronda Lehman, president, Mercy Health – Lima. “Not only will this facility serve as an advanced training ground for our local medical teams, but we see it as just another step in our path of making sure our local residents have the highest quality care right here in their hometown.”
A bold vision for the future of medical education in our community, the building will serve as a place to foster continued growth for future generations of health care professionals as well as offer training and meeting space to area organizations. It will house state-of-the-art simulation labs and training spaces, a 240-seat lecture hall, classrooms, team-based project workspace, flexible library and study spaces as well as Graduate Medical Education leadership and team office space.
In addition to serving the needs of our new physicians, the center is designed to support the on-going training needs of our current providers, nurses and medical staff. The lecture hall space will be used for large training events, national speakers and on-going training, critical in today's rapidly changing world of healthcare. Additionally, training space will be available to community first responders, including fire, EMS, police and others.
““I am honored to be working with the team at St. Rita’s to make such an important project a reality,” said Karen Grothouse, capital campaign co-chair, Mercy Health Lima Foundation. “In addition to attracting the best and brightest physicians to our community, this investment is also contributing to the overall community development efforts in the region. Nearly 100 new physicians and their families will reside in the Lima region — living, working, buying homes, shopping and volunteering. Additionally, this facility is a grand new anchor for the revitalization of our downtown corridor.”
St. Rita’s has been a leader in graduate medical education and currently offers accredited programs in Podiatric Medicine & Surgery, Pharmacy, Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine and Internal Medicine. In March of each year, thousands of medical students throughout the country are matched to St. Rita’s and begin their residency training in the community. The medical center now welcomes 26-30 new doctors and their families to the community each year.