Med School a Reality

              THURSDAY, OCT. 9, 1975 Med School a Heality
By ANN DEMENT
Journal Medical Writer
Shreveport is a reality.
Located adjacent to Confederate
Memorial Medical Center and North-
Once merely a dream in the minds of a western State University School of Nur-few
local physicians, Louisiana State sing on Kings Highway, the five-building
University School of Medicine in complex is getting it's final touches in
The telephone system has direct lines to other major medical
centers. (Journal Photos by Andy Sharp)
time for dedication ceremonies Oct. 28,
at 2 p.m.
• The 550,000-square-foot complex is the
largest structure in the entire LSU
System. The total project budget was
$30.8 million — $24 million for the
building, $1.1 million for X-ray equip-ment
and $3.6 million for movable
items.
THE PROJECT, which began Sept.
16, 1971, was originally scheduled for
completion in September, 1974.
However, because of considerable con-struction
delays and a strike by
laborers, the facility will not be ready
for operation until late November.
Dr. Alvin C. Harper, vice president of
the LSU System for administration and
facility planning, said final inspection of
the buildings is being done as they
are completed. Regarding building de-lays,
he said that because of the tremen-dous
size of the complex it was difficult
to estimate an exact time of completion.
The five Buildings in the school are
defined as Buildings A, B, C, D, and E.
Housed in the buildings are: Building A
— Family Practice Clinic; Building B —
main medical school building, which
includes lecture halls, study areas,
administrative offices, and animal care
facilities; Building C — library,
laboratories and special classrooms;
Building D — mechanical building,
which includes air conditioners,
chillers, boilers, emergency generators
and building controls; and Building E —
storage building and paint shop.
Financing for the complex came from
a $20,288 million federal grant with the
balance provided by state bonds.
Three local architectural firms incor-porated
to design the project. Harper
said, "I must admit we were dubious
about three architectural firms working
together in this project but it has worked
out fine." The three firms — Samuel G.
Weiner and Associates, Wilson and San-difer,
and Wiener, Hill, Morgan and
O'Neal — incorporated under the name
Associated Medical School Architects.
THE OPERATIONAL budget for the
medical school will increase about $3
million a year. There will be 350 full-time
employes as the facility when it
.opens and increasing to an estimated1
i750 employes when the complex is fully
operational.
Security at the school will be headed
by Bill Pickens, formerly with the
Shreveport Department of Public
Safety.
When completed the school will adjoin
the NSU Nursing School and CMMC,
which is the teaching hospital for the
medical school.
Some of the special features in the
medical school complex are: the Cen-trax
II telephone system, 1,000
individual telephones, and direct line
phones to other major medical com-plexes
in New York, Houston, Chicago,
Birmingham, New Orleans and Los
Angeles; a Whole Body Counter (70 tons
of steel encasement designed to create
perfect environment for testing amoun-ts
of radioactivity in man), Semans and
Phillips X-ray equipment; a television
studio in which procedures being perfor-med
here are immediately transmitted
to other major medical centers, and a
unique book detection system which will
be utilized in the school's library.