CAMDEN Cooper Medical School of Rowan University is hosting its long-awaited grand opening Tuesday, marking a monumental milestone for both the university and the hospital.

In June 2009, Rowan University and the Cooper Health System decided together to address the physician shortage locally and nationally, as well as to improve health care throughout the region.

They approached us and we said, Yeah, were in. Lets do it, Rowan University spokesman Joe Cardona said. We were ready and willing while other folks werent.

According to Cardona, Cooper had long been on the quest for its own four-year medical school for decades and turned to Rowan University when other entities didnt have the wherewithal to partner.

That same year, then-state Gov. Jon Corzine signed an executive reorganization order that would create a new allopathic medical school in Camden.

Three years later, the new six-story educational building will be the 135th medical school in the ground and the first new medical school in the state in more than 35 years.

With only a few finishing touches remaining before the opening this week, Dr. Paul Katz, founding dean of CMSRU, gave South Jersey Sunday a sneak-peak of the 200,000-square-foot, $139 million facility.

The 25 active learning rooms, a learning commons room and satellite medical library, the Clinical Simulation Center and laboratory and research space are all designed to breed hands-on healers of the future.

Our theme is hi-tech, hi-touch, Katz said, overlooking the 250-seat auditorium, which, like many of the learning spaces in the building, is fitted for audio and visual recording for future reference and review for students and alumni.

We wanted this to be an experience thats not sterile, Katz said.

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