Lions Gate Hospital expansion makes room for more medical training

A $62.2 million expansion of Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver will include space for the Faculty of Medicine’s growing numbers of medical students and residents, as well as a new acute mental health facility and an ambulance station for BC Ambulance Service.

The project, announced April 29 by Health Minister Mike de Jong and Advanced Education Minister Naomi Yamamoto, will provide new or larger clinical exam rooms, videoconference rooms, a library, administrative space and facilities for medical students and residents. Lions Gate Hospital is an affiliated regional centre of the faculty, one of 20 hospitals throughout the province that play a formal role in the faculty’s medical training programs.

“The additional academic space included in this project will allow the Faculty of Medicine to train more medical students and medical residents, enabling them to gain and enhance clinical skills, easily consult reference materials, and participate in learning sessions, either with each other or, thanks to videoconferencing technology, with other trainees throughout the province,” said Gavin C.E. Stuart, Dean, Faculty of Medicine and UBC’s Vice Provost Health. “Having doubled our medical program’s enrolment over the last six years, this expansion is a crucial step in making sure our students and residents have all the learning resources they need, wherever they may be located.”

The Province is providing $38.2 million in capital funding through Vancouver Coastal Health. The Lions Gate Hospital Foundation is also a project partner, and has committed to raise the balance – $24 million.

Construction is expected to get underway in summer 2012, with completion targeted for the end of 2013.

For more information, visit http://www.med.ubc.ca/media/201104/Lions_Gate_Hospital_expansion_makes_room_for_more_medical_training.htm