New facilities and curriculum, same goal 

The University of South Dakota is relocating its medical school to Sioux Falls, with the goal of a more active learning approach.

The first 18 months of USD’s M.D. program is going to be taking place at Sanford Health’s Tally Building by summer 2028. At the moment, students do not have a medical center to see physicians do their day to day work in hospitals and clinics. 

With this move, students will be right on both the Sanford Campus where the Tally Building is under renovation and Avera is renovating a space where students will be as well. There will be another state of the art anatomy lab where students are not only going to be taught by anatomists, but surgical residents and faculty. 

After this change, students will be more prepared for the clinicals they start after the first 18 months. 

Clinician physician educators and biomedical sciences faculty will be working with students in the classroom together. 

“They get excited about what they’re doing and the retention is much better,” Dr. Tim Ridgway, dean of the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine, said. 

Instead of a lecture style of teaching, students will be spread around the room and present patients’ cases, as they want the patient to be the center of education. 

Many community members have been concerned about this change, but the dean and other faculty members plan to stick to their original goal of bringing good healthcare to rural areas. Dr. Ridgway’s mission statements are to provide the opportunity to every South Dakota resident to get a high-quality medical education and to provide a curriculum that will encourage students to pursue their careers in the state as well. 

This will not hurt the Vermillion community, and is going to help The Lee Medicine building in the end. Other healthcare related undergraduate programs are going to be enhanced because of the availability of the building.

The medical program relies on the PhDs in Vermillion to provide a crucial foundation, and that will not change with the move. “We will continue to absolutely emphasize the PhD education in those first 18 months, but we also rely on all of these clinical physicians around the state to make certain that we can deliver our mission,” Dr. Ridgway said. 

Sioux Falls is now going to be a true academic center, as USD’s M.D. program heavily relies on all three health systems, Sanford, Avera, and VA.