LIMA — The forthcoming Graduate Medical Education Center for Mercy Health-St. Rita’s Medical Center got a boost this week from Nutrien, which donated $100,000 toward the facility that will train future medical residents and students in Lima.
“It’s going to help bring doctors into this area,” said Todd Sutton, a general manager for Nutrien’s Lima plant.
Sutton said the GME Center aligned with Nutrien’s philanthropic goals, so “it seemed like a good fit for us to try to help with this.”
The donation will help St. Rita’s finish the building project and implement its graduate medical program, which already hosts residents in family medicine, internal medicine and emergency medicine, along with podiatry and pharmacy residents.
The $15 million campus will feature a variety of high-tech simulation labs and a 250-seat lecture hall, all located across the street from St. Rita’s Medical Center on Market Street.
While the project was developed to recruit more physicians and medical students to Lima, as the region faces a coming physician shortage, the GME Center may at times be used for public seminars and first responder training sessions.
“It’s a wonderful synergy between Nutrien’s goal to help the community and what we’re doing here with graduate medical education,” Mercy Health Lima market President Ronda Lehman said on Wednesday.
Lehman said the building project is on schedule for completion by the spring of 2021.
Nutiren Lima General Manager Todd Sutton (left) presents a check to Mercy Health Lima market President Ronda Lehman on Wednesday outside the future Graduate Medical Education Center.