A dean and 15 faculty members have moved into their offices at the new medical school on campus in preparation for the fall 2010 incoming class.

“It’s a building with high tech teaching equipment, the use of the space is lovely and we’re on a beautiful setting on the North Oconee River,” Barbara Schuster, dean of the Athens medical campus, said in a phone interview Thursday.

The MCG/UGA Interim Medical Partnership Building sits on Williams Street, near the Blind Pig Tavern and River Mill Apartments. The four-story building was first constructed as a cotton and wool factory in 1857.

Inside, bare bricks and dark wood columns line the walls. The air smells of fresh paint and mortar. Soft lighting leads visitors past the empty classrooms and offices.

On the ground floor are a stylish student lounge, a large anatomy lab and two large classrooms, meant to accommodate the incoming class of 40 students in August 2010. The anatomy lab has five large flat screen TVs which will be used during dissections, Toni Phelabaum, administrative associate, said Friday during a tour of the building. Phelabaum said students can view a close-up of the dissections on the screen while being videotaped overhead.

“Each of those [class]rooms are completely video capable,” Schuster said. “We can video a student talking to a volunteer patient or a group and observe group interactions.”

The medical students will work in small groups and see volunteer patients on the second floor, which has eight to 10 smaller classrooms resembling doctor’s offices. A small library and librarian’s office are also on the second floor.

The first floor holds the dean suites and the deans’ conference room, where MCG’s associate dean met with medical professors on Friday to work on building the curriculum.

About 10 more faculty positions need to be filled within the next year, Schuster said.

“Recruitment in Athens has been easy because people like to come to the Athens area. They have been very impressed and excited,” Schuster said. “Many of the faculty we’re recruiting this coming year will be teaching courses for the second year of medical school, so they’ll have time to plan by the time students get to their courses.”

In 2012, the medical campus will move to the old Navy Supply Corps School, located on Prince Avenue. The Navy is relocating to Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island in spring of 2011.The Navy Supply Corps’ 58 acres of land will become the University’s Health Sciences campus – which will include the MCG/UGA medical campus and likely the College of Public Health, Tom Jackson, vice president for public affairs, said in a phone interview Thursday.

After the move, the renovated facility will be available for research and science-based classes, to meet the pressing need for science instruction on campus, Jackson said.

There is a possibility of the MCG School of Nursing in Athens to join the campus as well, Schuster said.

“There are visions, but the plans are not completely in stone,” she said.

Georgia’s low doctor-to-patient ratio may improve as the MCG/UGA Medical Partnership works to keep its graduating physicians in the state.

“We hope to design programs where the medical students work throughout the state, so they have a knowledge of different areas in state and can make connections to communities where they eventually will want to remain,” Schuster said.

The vast majority of students attending MCG are from Georgia, so staying in Georgia for medical school is helpful in eventually settling here as well, she said.

The medical college is working with hospitals and the state to increase post-graduate training opportunities, Schuster said.