The first two years of medical school are housed in the new Lee Med building located on the USD campus. This state of the art facility was completed fall of 2008 and has become the spot in Vermillion that medical students call home.

Probably one of the greatest aspects of the facility is accessibility. Students have key cards to the building allowing 24/7 access to study rooms, classrooms, the medical student lounge, and the anatomy lab. Thus, whether you are a late night coffee guzzling studier or like to start your studying early in the morning there is ample space to get your learn on. The study rooms are equipped with wide screen TVs and tablet computers to allow for group studying or just late night You Tube breaks.

The basement of the Lee Medical Building houses the brand new anatomy lab which is equipped with state of the art air exchange (to minimize odor) as well as wide-screen TVs to aid instruction during dissections. Also located in the basement are the clinical exam rooms. Here, first and second year students get the opportunity to practice their clinical skills on each other and paid volunteers in preparation for the OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Exams). In addition to the clinical exam rooms, SSOM students have access to “Harvey”, a life size cardiology patient simulator. With the help of Harvey, second year students can learn to identify the sounds of many heart problems.

“The hands on learning from the anatomy lab is the only way to fully appreciate the complexity and diversity of the human body. Just seeing the variances among our 16 cadavers lends credence to the fact that observing prosections on line couldn't hold a candle to the educational advantage real cadavers can provide.”