This semester, NSU announced that the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine (NSUMD) received provisional accreditation from The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). The LCME is an accrediting body of education programs for schools of allopathic medicine in the U.S. and Canada, sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the American Medical Association (AMA).
The LCME granted NSUMD an initial preliminary accreditation in 2017 as NSUMD welcomed its inaugural class of 50 students in August 2018. Since then, NSUMD has admitted approximately 50-55 students per year.
According to Johannes Vieweg, dean of NSUMD, full accreditation from LCME is pivotal and the NSUMD program is on track to meet the 18 month deadline to prepare for the final site visit.
“The LCME has a two year accreditation process in a series of steps where a survey team is sent to make sure we meet all the standards of a medical school that provides a quality medical school degree and overall education. The standards are pretty high with about 500 points we need to address and there is a lot of preparation and details needed for these site visits,” said Vieweg.
Medical school curriculum consists of two major phases: the preclerkship curriculum wherein students learn all the basic sciences and the case-based curriculum at NSU. After the second year, students move to clinical clerkships provided through the NSU and HCA hospital partnership in seven hospitals that provide these clerkship opportunities. The provisional accreditation certifies that NSU has successfully met preclerkship standards and now can build out their clinical clerkship curriculum with HCA to be, among other standards, granted full accreditation by the LCME by 2023.
“The way our medical school is shaping up makes us stand out. We are clearly different when we are compared to the curriculum to other schools, especially here in the state of Florida. Here, we are teaching in cases so we are not teaching by lectures as most traditional schools do. I think cramming and lecture based learning is outdated and the basic sciences are interwoven so in my opinion, this is a more integrated and interactive way of learning,” said Vieweg.
In the NSUMD program, 80% of the curriculum is focused on small, group-learning strategies. Students learn through problem-based and team-based groups with an average of ten students per group. In these cohorts, students discuss 60 to 80 cases that cover all the complexities and requirements for medical education.
According to Vieweg, having a major hospital system as a partner of NSUMD, although not an exclusive partnership, helps build a high quality education by streamlining education strategies and providing students access to residences that can be highly competitive.
“NSUMD will be the 10th medical university in Florida and we are ready to launch a 21st century medical school and we are very proud of that. We are looking for leaders, those who are self-starters that can take on initiative in our community. It’s a strong call of mine to connect our student’s with the South Florida community through partnerships, projects, research and volunteer work. We want to create a diverse set of new leaders in health, education and research in healthcare,” said Vieweg.
Currently, the NSUMD program plans to reach their goal of full accreditation with 50 students by the year 2023, with the next site visit expected by the LCME during the 2022-2023 academic year. After receiving full accreditation, Vieweg mentioned that there will be discussions of the next steps for the program.
