Former M'town hospital to house dorms, classes

Construction continues Wednesday at the future campus of Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Middletown.JOHN MEORE/For the Times Herald-Record

Published: 2:00 AM - 11/14/13

MIDDLETOWN The former Horton Hospital is starting to look a little more like a medical school.

The ground floor of the future Touro College building, which used to be the hospital's shipping and storage area, is already taking shape as classrooms and study areas for the school of osteopathic medicine. The seats are already in the lecture hall downstairs, and walls have gone up, dividing the floor into spacious study areas.

When it's done, the college will contain 110,000 square feet, 30,000 feet bigger than Touro's Harlem campus, which is housed in a converted department store, said Dr. Kenneth Steier, dean of the Middletown campus.

"You can never have enough study space," Steier said, as he showed a reporter and photographer around.

Student services will be on the first floor. There will be more classes on the second floor rooms where the students can practice medicine on mannequins, or where they will practice diagnosis on actors who pretend to have different ailments.

The former patients' rooms on the second floor are turning into dorm rooms for students and offices for professors. In total, 104 students will be able to live in the former hospital, Steier said.

The school will open in August 2014. So far, Touro has received 5,000 applications for the first year, and 90 percent of them have said they would be interested in attending either Touro's Harlem or Middletown campuses. Steier said 30 students of the college's first class of 135 have been picked already.

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Medical school taking shape