Medical school readies for critical review
BY RUTHANN RICHTER
Over the last nine months, more than 200 faculty, students and staff have turned their attention to a job that's designed to ensure the vibrancy—and the future—of the School of Medicine. Their ultimate goal: to win renewed accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which provides the official stamp of approval for medical schools in the United States and Canada. The process, which takes place every eight years, is an arduous one.
"This has been an enormous effort, involving hundreds of hours of work, and we've made tremendous progress," said medical school dean Philip Pizzo, MD. "We still have some work to do, but I believe all of our preparations will serve us well."
Thus far, the LCME task force and its 13 subcommittees have produced a 50-page draft summary report and 3,000 pages of documentation that capture virtually every aspect of the school in minute detail. In addition, the medical students have completed their own detailed survey. All of the materials fill several hefty binders.
The documents are now being finalized in preparation for submission in mid-July to LCME headquarters in Washington.
A central piece of the process involves an extensive self-examination, in which the school must honestly assess its strengths and flaws. Oscar Salvatierra, MD, the faculty member leading the process, said the self-study has made it clear the school is on the right track—that many of the initiatives executed as part of the school's strategic plan, "Translating Discoveries," are in tune with LCME goals as well.
"The LCME process has only served to corroborate the direction we've been taking," said Salvatierra, professor of surgery and of pediatrics. "I think the strategic planning process has put us in a good position for the LCME."
Salvatierra said that in some instances the school has made major changes to address some aspects of the education program where it believed it could be stronger. For example, the school has added a new, required four-week clerkship in ambulatory medicine, a part of the new curriculum that had been under discussion for some time. The school also has created two new divisions of Evaluation and Clerkship Education to monitor the quality of the new curriculum and student performance, as well as the quality and consistency of the students' clinical experiences.
In addition to the self-exam, the LCME calls on students to do a separate survey to reflect their perspective on the education program. Some 68 percent of the school's 459 medical students responded to the survey, which covers a wide range of topics, said Rebecca Trumbull, project manager for the reaccreditation process.
"The students did a very comprehensive job," Trumbull said. "Clearly they care a tremendous amount about their school and their education and they've been engaged in making it the best it possibly can be." Trumbull said the responses suggest that students are happy with their overall educational experience, particularly their research and scholarly opportunities and their experiences in specialty care. At their suggestion, the school will beef up its student advising program with the hiring of a "life" advisor—someone to whom they can turn to discuss personal issues unrelated to academic matters, Salvatierra said.
If there is an issue in which the school still feels somewhat vulnerable, it relates to facilities, Salvatierra said.
In the last LCME review, the school was criticized for inadequacies in its facilities, particularly the classrooms and the library. Salvatierra noted that the school has been responsive on this front, investing more than $17 million in building upgrades. This includes improvements in the M-wing classrooms and the anatomy labs and renovated student study spaces in the Center for Clinical Sciences Research, the Fleischmann Labs and Lane Medical Library. But the "ultimate answer," he noted, is the multimillion-dollar Knowledge and Learning Center, which is still in the planning stages.
In preparation for the final leg of the LCME process, the school has called upon a private consulting firm, DJW Associates, to help conduct a mock visit in September. The consultants, all former medical school deans or LCME officials, will visit the school and conduct practice interviews in advance of the real, three-day inspection tour in October. The school expects to be notified of its status within a month or so after the October visit.
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