Photos by KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times

New chairs await the first students inside the lecture hall at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. The $59 million school and research institute was paid for through a state bond package.

Michael Friedlander, founding executive director of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, talks about the opening of the new Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine during a media tour in Roanoke on Thursday.

The finishing touches are being put on the new Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke as the administration prepares for students to fill the rooms in 17 days.

Desks are being assembled, the library still has to be filled with electronic and paper books, and other equipment is being brought in, but the school is nearly ready, three and a half years after the idea was first publicized.

Virginia Tech and Carilion Clinic announced a partnership to bring a medical school to Roanoke in January 2007. It was the brainchild of Virginia Tech President Charles Steger and Carilion CEO Dr. Ed Murphy.

On Thursday the school was opened for a media tour.

The school's founding dean, Dr. Cynda Johnson, reflected on how the school is opening at a time of significant change in American health care. But even amid uncertainty over how health care will be delivered in future years, Johnson said VTC's students will be prepared for their jobs.

"We are preparing physician thought leaders who will be able to face and lead through the unknown," she said.

A week of orientation for the first class of 42 students will begin Aug. 2. Classes begin in earnest the week after that, although Johnson said students will begin learning from real medical cases the moment they walk through the door.

VTC is the 131st medical school in the U.S. and Canada offering a doctor of medicine degree that has received preliminary accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

The $59 million building, paid for through a state bond package and owned by Virginia Tech, will house both the school and a companion Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. A temporary occupancy permit has been issued for the school while the research institute is being completed.

Construction began in 2008. More than 500 workers helped build the facility, which totals 207,519 square feet and is located on Carilion-owned land in the Riverside Center near the corner of South Jefferson Street and Reserve Avenue.

The school was built so that it could eventually be certified through the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, which recognizes buildings that meet energy efficiency standards. Most of the construction trash -- 78.3 percent -- was recycled, and the building has a special roof and motion-activated lighting.

Local materials, including concrete from the Boxley plant in Roanoke, bricks from Martinsville and Hokie Stone from a quarry near Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, were all used in the construction.

Meanwhile, planning for the future is ongoing.

Recruiting for the second wave of students began 10 days ago, and Johnson said applications are rolling in quickly.

She could not provide specific numbers of applications yet.

On Aug. 28, the school will begin interviewing applicants for its second class.

Johnson said she can't wait for the first students to be seated in the lecture room on the first day.

"I get to speak to the class," she said when asked about what she was looking forward to on the first day. "And I can't imagine what I'm going to say. It will probably be what I'm thinking and feeling that moment. ... You know it takes a certain student that wants to be this entrepreneurial and wants to start a new school."