The Tennessee General Assembly has approved the funding of $311 million recommended by Governor Bill Lee for the construction of a new $350 million College of Medicine Interdisciplinary Building at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences.

The 275,000- to 300,000-square-foot building will be located on the Memphis campus on Madison Avenue, between the College of Pharmacy Building at 881 Madison Ave. and the recently demolished Holiday Inn building at the corner of Madison Avenue and Pauline Street.

The new building will allow room to expand the medicine class from 175 to 250 per cohort and the Physician Assistant Program to grow from 30 to 60 students per year. Because UT Health Sciences has a statewide footprint, this stands to have a measurable impact on health care across Tennessee.

“This is an investment in continuing to meet the significant deficit in physicians and physician assistants in the state of Tennessee, with projections suggesting that there will be a need for 6,000 additional physicians in the state by 2030,” said Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer Raaj Kurapati, who is leading the project. Additionally, demand for interdisciplinary roles is expected to grow, such as nurse anesthetists by 40 percent and physician assistants by 28 percent.

New technology will facilitate interdisciplinary training aimed at producing health care providers who are equipped to work together to meet the demands of health care today.

It will support telehealth training in multiple fields and increase the use of online educational opportunities for the College of Medicine and other colleges, allowing for eventual increases in the number of academic certificate programs and enrollment in those programs.