Medical School gest $12.5 million for high-tech education building

From Staff Report

The Claude Moore Charitable Foundation of Fairfax has made a $12.5 million challenge gift to U.Va.’s School of Medicine for a state-of-the-art medical education building. The commitment — the largest private gift ever for a Medical School building project — requires the University to raise the other half of the facility’s $25 million cost.

“This facility will enable us to impart the increasingly complex skills our medical students need to become effective and compassionate physicians and to pursue new advances in patient care,” said University President John T. Casteen III. “We owe the Claude Moore Charitable Foundation and its trustees a tremendous debt of gratitude.”

The 85,000-square-foot structure will provide flexible teaching spaces and new technologies to support innovative medical instruction. It will offer specialized multimedia classrooms with Internet connections and other technological tools. It also will contain video-equipped exam rooms that will allow students to review and analyze their interactions with their patients.

The building’s Medical Simulation Training Center will offer a safe, cost-effective way for medical students, residents and emergency medical technicians to hone essential skills. In addition to the challenge gift, the foundation has provided $180,000 to purchase patient simulators — lifelike, computerized mannequins that can be programmed to exhibit standard medical symptoms and to respond appropriately to treatment — and provide specialized training in their use.

“Human patient simulation is a computer-driven model that provides hands-on experience for students to learn in a true-to-life setting,” said Dr. Marcus Martin, chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine. “It provides opportunities for interdisciplinary team training and helps decrease medical errors in the way that aviation training reduces pilot errors.”

The Claude Moore Charitable Foundation continues a tradition of philanthropy established by its namesake, a longtime Washington radiologist and a 1916 graduate of the U.Va. School of Medicine who died in 1991 at the age of 98.

Foundation trustee Leigh Middleditch, who holds undergraduate and law degrees from the University, noted: “Dr. Moore was a man of firm opinions, and he understood the importance of education in the practice of medicine. We believe this superb, high-tech medical education facility will continue to attract the best and brightest students and faculty to the School of Medicine.”

Previously, Moore gave $300,000 to the University for its health sciences library, which bears his name.

Later, in 1992, with grants totaling $400,000 from the Claude Moore Charitable Foundation, the Board of Visitors established the Claude Moore Professorship in his memory. Dr. Diane Snustad, professor of gerontology, currently holds this chair.