The University of South Dakota announced Aug. 14 that its Sanford School of Medicine, long the only medical school in the state, will move the first 18 months of doctor of medicine training and the division of biomedical and translational sciences from Vermillion to Sioux Falls by summer 2027.
Vermillion is home to the Lee Medical Building and adjoining School of Health Sciences, which currently houses the division of basic biomedical sciences where students take their first 18 months of medical school.
But the remaining 30 months of medical education are spent in other locations, with the majority of students in Sioux Falls, meaning many students spend valuable education time commuting from Vermillion to Sioux Falls.
USD President Sheila Gestring speaks with reporters after the Sanford School of Medicine announcement on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, at Canopy by Hilton in Sioux Falls.
USD President Sheila Gestring said last spring, of the two cohorts of 71 students in their first 18 months of medical school in Vermillion, only about 57 of them lived in Vermillion and the rest commuted there from Sioux Falls for their medical training.
“Losing that time commuting back and forth is not a great student experience,” Gestring said. “So yes, it’s difficult to make this change, to make this leap, but at the end of the day, it’s about the students.”
Once the start of the doctor of medicine program moves out of the Lee building in Vermillion and into the Sanford USD Medical Center in Sioux Falls, USD plans to move programs housed in the Akeley-Lawrence Science Center — like physics, sustainability and environment — out of that building and into the Lee building, which Gestring said will allow the programs to expand.
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At the Sanford USD Medical Center in Sioux Falls, Sanford Health will give USD a temporary space “at a manageable cost for the initial years of transition,” according to a press release. There will be space for an anatomy lab, research labs, classroom space and medical student support services.
The Akeley-Lawrence Science Center has long been on USD’s list of budget requests for legislators to fund renovating or replacing, including a $30 million request made in 2023 for for fiscal year 2025, a later $20 million request to demolish it and it replace it with an interdisciplinary data sciences building, and a request last month from Gestring to the South Dakota Board of Regents to see the building upgraded, as its foundation is “failing,” she said.
That interdisciplinary data sciences laboratory pitched in 2023 could end up in the Lee building, too, as “every discipline is going to need to be proficient in artificial intelligence and how to use it,” Gestring said.
Once the Akeley-Lawrence building is demolished, which could be sometime after fall 2028, Gestring said she’d like to find a way to honor E. O. Lawrence, a USD alumnus and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics who was born in Canton, by bringing Vermillion, USD and Canton locals together to find a way to honor Lawrence on campus in that same space.
In the next seven to 10 years, the second phase of the change will be a new “state-of-the-art” building that will be a “beacon of service to South Dakota” with research and education in one place, Dr. Tim Ridgway, Dean of the USD-SSOM, said.
Sanford School of Medicine Dean Dr. Tim Ridgeway speaks Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, during the Sanford School of Medicine announcement presentation at Canopy by Hilton in Sioux Falls.
How long has this been in the works?
The announcement has been “building for decades,” Sanford Health President and CEO Bill Gassen said.
Gassen added that bringing the USD-SSOM to Sioux Falls will create more opportunities for training, learning and research, and “keep the absolute best and brightest here in the state of South Dakota so that they can continue to give world-class care to every single patient, regardless of their zip code.”
Ridgway said this announcement has taken over 20 years, noting previous medical school deans Rodney Parry, who served as dean from 2004 to 2011, and Mary Nettleman, who served as dean from 2012 to 2020, “both tried to get this done.”
“There’s just a lot that has to come together,” he said.
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Gestring said the BOR has been in discussion for “some time” about the move to Sioux Falls in its closed executive sessions during board meetings and in discussions about Gestring’s goals for the campus. She also said she’s spoken with the Vermillion mayor, chamber and city council in recent days about the move.
Students will benefit most from the change, Ridgway said, as they’ll no longer have to “commute in the dead of winter” and will have access to physicians throughout the city, work on clinically relevant scenarios, perform better on licensing exams, make them more competitive for residencies and move research infrastructure to Sioux Falls.
The students who will move from Vermillion to Sioux Falls will also get to access what’s already on-site at the Sanford USD Medical Center along with medical school administration, clinical departments, Graduate Medical Education, the Center for Disabilities, the Parry Center for Clinical Skills and Simulation, and the Wegner Health Sciences Library.
There are departments in family medicine, internal medicine, neurosciences, obstetrics and gynecology, pathology, pediatrics, psychiatry and surgery there.
The USD-SSOM also still includes the Rapid City Medical Campus near Monument Health Hospital; Yankton’s campus, with clinical rotations and educational opportunities at Avera Sacred Heart Hospital, Indian Health Service in Wagner, South Dakota Human Services Center and Yankton Medical Clinic; and multiple FARM (Frontier and Rural Medicine) sites in Chamberlain, Milbank, Mobridge, Parkston, Pierre, Spearfish and Vermillion.
University of South Dakota medical students stand up to be recognized during the Sanford School of Medicine announcement on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, at Canopy by Hilton in Sioux Falls.
‘Health care took a giant step forward’
Ridgway pointed to the school’s recent 50th anniversary of granting doctor of medicine degrees, and said he hopes that in another 50 years, “people look back on this day and say, ‘Wow, health care took a giant step forward.’”
Gestring said in a statement that as the state’s only medical school, “we have both a responsibility and an opportunity to shape the future of medicine in the state.”
“USD has a legacy of supporting the state’s health care systems, building a skilled workforce and promoting the health and well-being of South Dakotans,” Gestring said in a statement.
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South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, who grew up near Union Center, said he recognizes how difficult it can be to provide health care to the entire state, especially in rural communities, where it can be tough to get medical professionals to stay and work.
The announcement “will benefit all of South Dakota, not just Sioux Falls,” Rhoden said, noting the move will give students more clinical experiences, closer ties to the state’s health care systems, and help them stay in-state after graduation.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: USD moving medicine training, biomedical science division to Sioux Falls
