Editor’s Note: The UNMC College of Medicine is currently in the process of seeking reaccreditation through the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). The LCME site visit is scheduled for Oct. 6-9, 2013. During the accreditation process, Hugh Stoddard, Ph.D., director and special assistant dean for medical education, will provide a monthly update on accreditation. Dr. Stoddard is self-study coordinator for the College of Medicine.
Question of the Month:
Q: Where is the College of Medicine in the LCME process? How much longer will the process continue?
A: From start to finish, the process for accreditation takes up to 22 months. This includes 18 months of preparation for the site visit and up to 4 months after the visit for the LCME to vote on a final action on accreditation status. The UNMC site visit is scheduled for Oct. 6 – 9, 2013, which is 10 months from now.
Currently, nine sub-committees are reviewing the information about the college which has been collected for the database. These sub-committees will finish reviewing all of the information and draft their reports by the end of this month.
Beginning in January, nine months prior to the site visit, the Institutional Self-Study Task Force will convene. The task force will work on consolidating the nine sub-committee reports into a single, coherent document. This self-study report is on target to be completed by March 31, 2013.
Following the completion of the self-study, the months of April and May will be used to make updates to the database (such as updating information that wasn’t available initially) and to edit the reports for grammar and style. The final documents will be submitted by May 31, 2013.
The student self-study team has created their survey and has collected responses to the survey items from their peers. They are currently working on analyzing those responses and will subsequently begin writing the Student Self-Study Report. The student self-study is on track to be completed by March 31, 2013.
Comparing our progress to the LCME’s suggested timeline shows that we are still on schedule. The nine sub-committees have been meeting regularly and devoting extra time to complete their tasks on time. Their efforts to stay on schedule will ensure that we can produce an excellent set of documents for the LCME and the site visitors.