The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) awarded the College of Medicine provisional status, the second of three approvals necessary for the college to be fully accredited and able to grant degrees to its students.
The LCME is the nationally recognized accrediting authority for medical degree education programs in the U.S. and Canada. An LCME survey team visited the college in February and evaluated its progress in meeting 132 standards. Those standards include requirements for classroom and clinical training, educational resources, faculty and budgeting. Full accreditation will not be determined until 2013, when the school’s charter class is in the fourth year of the program.
“I am delighted with the LCME’s decision and am especially proud of the College of Medicine team – our faculty, students, staff and community partners — who are responsible for our extraordinary success,” said Dr. Deborah German, vice president for medical affairs and founding dean of the college. “While we are still very young, we are on track to becoming the nation’s premier 21st century college of medicine.”
The college has 100 students and will enroll its third class of 80 students in August. The charter class recently began its clerkships at area hospitals and clinics.
The medical school, which admitted its first class in 2009, has already gained a reputation for innovation. The school’s new medical education building houses a state-of-the-art anatomy lab and digitally enhanced classrooms. It has drawn visitors from around the world looking for ways to integrate technology into their educational and health facilities back home.
This week, an international audiovisual conference at the Orange County Convention Center will feature those high-tech learning environments and participants will tour the medical school.
But technology alone doesn’t make a premier medical school. Community service is another keystone of the college. In April, the college received the Paul R. Wright Award from the American Medical Student Association in recognition of the students’ volunteerism and leadership as future healthcare leaders. And today the college will host 30 high school seniors who are part of Florida Area Health Education Center, a program dedicated to recruiting and educating them about caring for the state’s growing medically needy population.