A bright red couch sits opposite a wall-mounted TV inside the vault of the old TD Bank building at Dundas and Wellington streets.

These unlikely treasures are part of the new media theatre at the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Visitors are invited into the vault to watch videos tell the story of each of the hall's 71 inductees.

Named in memory of 2001 inductee, Dr. John E. Bradley, the media theatre was funded by a $15,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and by a private donation from Bradley's daughter Ann Matheson. "Dad would be just absolutely thrilled," Matheson said.

Bradley was a surgeon in rural Alberta who helped establish the province's medi-care system.

"This is a great chance for innovators from the past to inspire the innovators of the future," said London West MP Ed Holder.

Matheson said her father loved education and would be excited to know the theatre was being used by students.

Anita Lambrech's Grade 8 class from Chippewa elementary school was on hand to watch Matheson, flanked by Holder and MPPs Chris Bentley and Khalil Ramal, as she cut the ribbon to open the theatre.

For the students, this was the culmination of Museum School, a week-long program that moves class to hospitals, research labs and the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Richard Tran, 14, said what impressed him most about the week was the technology.

"The vault is cool because it's all new. The touch-screen TV is pretty nice," he said.

That touch-screen interface is a big technological step forward for the hall.

"They used to have a rocking chair with a library of VHS tapes in there," said Ruth Thorogood of Thorogood Communications, the company that digitized the films.

Janet Tufts, the executive director of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, hopes the new theatre will attract more visitors. She said the facility typically gets 1,200 visitors a year. "It was really exciting to have the exhibit hall full of people, people of all ages talking about our medical achievements."