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OSU Center for Health Sciences, State Medical Examiner’s Office Dedicate New Shared Facility | Education

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A new building at the OSU Center for Health Sciences, which will house both new school facilities and the eastern office of the state’s chief medical examiner, received its official release into the community on Thursday.

A ribbon cutting and open house were held for the recently completed North Hall on campus at 1111 W. 17th St.

The four-story, 120,000-square-foot building — a collaboration between Oklahoma State University and the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner — is home to the latter’s office in Tulsa, along with its new anatomy and neuroanatomy labs, classrooms, and administrative offices. and department offices.

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“It’s fantastic,” said Dr Dennis Blankenship, the school’s interim dean. “Because we’ve grown over the years, that growth has been great, but it’s left us a little tight, with a lot of our facilities also a little outdated. This solves a lot of that problem, and it is just a beautiful, beautiful building.”

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Officials said final project costs are yet to be announced, but are expected to come in significantly below the $62 million budget.

The Medical Examiner’s Office contributed $22 million to the total.

The office, which has moved from its previous location on campus, occupies parts of the first and second floors.

It has nearly three times as much space as before, officials said.

“We’ve been talking about this for years,” said Dr. Josh Lanter, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner. “It’s one of those moments we’ve always hoped for, but it turned out even better than we ever expected.”

He said the office, which serves 25 counties, has seen a significant increase in its workload in recent years.

“This is going to help us a lot with the lead time,” Lanter said. “We can now hire new people for staffing and we are already doing that — more doctors, more administrative staff, more pad technicians.”

The new facility expands the number of autopsy tables from two to eight.

“We currently have six doctors and now we can all work at the same time,” Lanter said.

“This building was built 20 to 30 years later, so it allows us to keep growing,” he added.

Blankenship said one of the highlights for OSU officials is the new anatomy lab.

“It’s a very different level from what we had before,” he said.

The lab, used by OSU students of medicine, physician assistants and sports training, can accommodate many more students than the old lab and has dedicated space for assessment and study.

The storage cooler is twice the size of the previous one, and Neuroanatomy has its own lab in the new facility.

The top floor of the building is mainly devoted to administration. It includes the offices of the president, provost, administrative offices, the Office of Research, and the boardroom.

“New facilities like these are helping us attract and train the state’s best and brightest students,” said Dr. Johnny Stephens, president of the OSU Center for Health Sciences. “As we celebrate 50 years of our College of Osteopathic Medicine on our campus, we look forward to continuing our mission to educate primary care physicians for rural and underserved Oklahoma.”

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