Funding for new College of Medicine Interdisciplinary Building approved at University of Tennessee Health Science Center

The Tennessee General Assembly recently approved $311 million in funding for the new College of Medicine Interdisciplinary Building at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. The new building is expected to cost $350 million and will be built on the University of Tennessee Health Science Center Memphis campus. The university has begun a philanthropic campaign to raise $50 million toward the cost of the building and programming.

According to an article on the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s website that discusses a recent town hall meeting regarding the new building, College of Medicine Executive Dean Mike Hocker, MD, was quoted as saying that the new building “will change lives in Tennessee forever.” He went on to say, “This was a tremendous amount of work to get us here. I want to tell you how important this is. It's not just for Memphis. [The students are] going to have the prime real estate, because that’s who we’re here for. By 2030, we’ll have a shortage of 6,000 physicians in the state. As the state’s primary medical school and largest public university, we have got to fill that pipeline.”

Raaj Kurapati, who is the Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer, said to the audience of the town hall meeting of the fact that the project is the largest state-funded capital project for higher education in the state’s history, “It’s a testament to the work that you folks do. It’s a testament to the quality of students we have the privilege of educating and training, and it’s a testament to what we’re going to be doing for the future health care workforce needs of this state. We met with our colleagues in each of the campuses to get an appreciation of what we have there now, what are the growth opportunities, and how should that inform our capital master planning strategy for all. We look at this as an opportunity for us to truly modernize our facilities and provide up-to-date learning spaces for all our learners, current and future. We also wanted to make sure that we thought about our community.”

The College of Medicine Interdisciplinary Building will be a student-focused 300,000 square foot facility. It will be located in the middle of campus next to the College of Pharmacy Building on Madison Avenue. The building will feature extensive learning spaces, including specialty simulation spaces, a telehealth training hub, collaborative spaces, and green space. 

It is expected that the completion of the building will allow for the expansion of the medicine class of students from 175 to 250 per cohort and the Physician Assistant Program to grow from 30 to 60 students per year. 

In a separate article about the new College of Medicine Interdisciplinary Building, university Chancellor Peter Buckley, MD was quoted as saying, “This is a transformative step for UT Health Sciences, as well as for health and health care of the people of Tennessee. Tennessee currently ranks near the bottom in overall health outcomes. This building will serve as a hub for training future health care professionals to practice collaborative, state-of-the-art care across Tennessee.”

Construction is expected to begin in Fall 2026 and will be completed sometime in 2029.

For more information about The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, visit the school’s website.