UND and Bismarck prepare to break ground for new Center for Family Medicine

North Dakota and Bismarck dignitaries will turn out on Wednesday, Nov. 10, to celebrate the symbolic breaking of ground for the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences’ new $5.4 million, state-funded Center for Family Medicine–Bismarck. The three-story facility is a cooperative effort between Medcenter One, St. Alexius Medical Center and UND. The building is set to go up on the corner of Seventh Street and Rosser.

Joining North Dakota University System Chancellor Bill Goetz and President Robert O. Kelley at the groundbreaking will be Joshua Wynne, UND vice president for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences; Bismarck Mayor John Warford; Craig Lambrecht, president and chief executive officer of Medcenter One; Andrew Wilson, president and chief executive officer of St. Alexius Medical Center; Nicholas Neumann, dean of the Southwest Campus, and Robert Beattie, chair of the SMHS’s Department of Family and Community Medicine.

In 2009, the North Dakota Legislature appropriated the funds to the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences to construct a new facility for its Bismarck Center for Family Medicine and Southwest Campus offices. Randy Eken, associate dean for administration and finance at the SMHS, is chair of the building committee. Ritterbush-Ellig-Hulsing, P.C., of Bismarck is the architect and planner for the construction project.

The SMHS sought and received advice on the building’s location from the community, the City of Bismarck, Medcenter One, and St. Alexius Medical Center. Open to the public, the Center will be adjacent to both hospitals, making it ideal for faculty, staff, residents (medical school graduates), medical students and, most importantly, patients. The new location offers improved parking and easier access for clinic patients. It also features 20 exam rooms, four procedure rooms, X-ray and laboratory space, and business and administrative offices. For patients’ convenience, the facility will also include a pharmacy.

The Center for Family Medicine will serve as a clinic where medical residents in a three-year residency program are educated and trained under the supervision of excellent, experienced, board-certified family doctors, a pediatrician, and staff. Upon successful completion of the program, graduates are eligible for board-certification in family medicine. Residency training in family medicine has been provided in Bismarck by the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences for about 34 years. Family medicine training is also offered by the School in Minot. The new building will provide office and clinic space for approximately six faculty, 28 staff and 15 physicians-in-training, who will move from the Center’s current location at 515 East Broadway Ave. The Center for Family Medicine has graduated 143 doctors since its start in 1976; of those doctors, 76 still practice in North Dakota.

All clinic functions will be on the first floor of the approximately 45,000-square-foot facility; support functions, including office space for the residency program as well as the Southwest campus, will be on the second floor. Medcenter One will build and occupy the third floor. The SMHS hopes to complete and occupy the building by late fall of 2011.

— Denis MacLeod, assistant director, Office of Alumni and Community Relations, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, 777-2733, denis.macleod@med.und.edu.