A historic partnership

The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University welcomed its first class of 24 medical students to the campus in August. Located in renovated Phoenix Union High School buildings at Fifth and Van Buren streets on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, the school is a state-of-the-art facility that seamlessly melds the old and new in classrooms that utilize a variety of innovative technologies.

Twenty-four faculty members will instruct the historic first class of medical students. The medical-education curriculum features an interactive teaching approach and an emphasis on biomedical informatics - computer technology skills that support information gathering, diagnosis and the creation of tailored medical treatments or personalized medicine. Mentored scholarly research projects that each student undertakes on an individual basis will form the core of a shared, broad-based learning experience (learning community) over four years. Classes also focus on the integration of clinical and basic-science training.

The school is adjacent to the new Arizona Biomedical Collaborative Building 1 that houses the downtown Phoenix headquarters of the ASU Department of Biomedical Informatics, which in addition to serving ASU students, will provide training to students at the medical college on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus. Classes in the biomedical informatics program begin Aug. 20.