ATHENS, Ga. --- Dean Barbara Schuster and her staff moved into new offices Friday in the renovated building that will house the Medical College of Georgia's Athens campus for the next few years.

The first class of about 40 students is scheduled to begin in August 2010 in the old O'Malley's bar building, now rechristened the Interim Medical Partnership Building.

"It's a remarkable building," Ms. Schuster said as workers installed the final touches and staff members unpacked books, checked phone lines and found bathrooms in the new building, built as a cotton and wool factory in 1857.

University of Georgia campus architects left the original brick walls exposed and, in one section, the original hardwood floors.

The building might have the most modern teaching spaces on campus.

Digital video cameras peer into small classrooms that look like doctor's examination rooms so professors can monitor medical students meeting with volunteers posing as patients.

Students will be able to see and talk to counselors and advisers at MCG's main campus in Augusta over the Internet. Athens faculty and administrators can attend committee meetings in the same way with MCG colleagues in Augusta, Ms. Schuster said.

By Oct. 1, about 15 faculty members and other full-time employees will be working in the building; in a year, when classes begin, the number will be about 25 to 30, Ms. Schuster said.

Administrators say the school might move as early as 2012 to its permanent home, now occupied by the Navy Supply Corps School. UGA hasn't announced what will happen to the interim building then.