The medical school is on the cusp of being granted initial institutional accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), and full accreditation of the MD educational program from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), two important milestones that Dr. Hal B. Jenson, WMed’s founding dean, says are a credit to the tireless efforts of everyone at the medical school, as well as members of the Kalamazoo community.
“Bringing a new medical school to reality in Kalamazoo has been a lot of work, but it’s been accomplished through the dedication and hard work of our faculty and staff, the successful learning by our students and residents, and the generous philanthropy of this community,” Dr. Jenson said. “All of those elements have been critical in making the medical school a success. From where we started five or six years ago, we’ve moved a mountain.”
“But, we still have a mountain range to go. There are great opportunities for the medical school in Kalamazoo, and it will continue to require a lot of hard work from all of us to continue to be successful on that journey,” he added.
The pursuit of initial accreditation from the HLC has been an in-depth process that included, among other things, the submission of more than 8,500 pages of information to the accrediting entity. More recently, a HLC peer review team visited WMed from September 25-26 to complete a comprehensive evaluation to determine whether the medical school is ready to be granted early initial accreditation.
The HLC is one of six regional institutional accreditors in the U.S. that accredits degree-granting, postsecondary educational institutions. As a new medical school, WMed is currently a candidate for accreditation with the HLC. During the two-day visit in September, the peer review team from HLC met with a total of 125 people, including members of the medical school’s Board of Directors, leaders, standing committee chairs and members, faculty, staff, medical students, and graduate students during 27 different meetings.
It is anticipated that the medical school will be granted initial accreditation by the HLC at their June Board meeting following the May 13, 2018, graduation of students from the inaugural MD Class.
Meanwhile, the medical school is scheduled to host an on-site visit October 15-18 with peer reviewers from the LCME for full program accreditation. The visit will come a little more than a year after WMed was granted accreditation, provisional status, by the LCME in June 2016.
“We are well prepared,” Dr. Jenson said of the upcoming visit by the LCME peer review team. “We’re only five years old, but I would say the following even if we were 105 years old — we’re looking to make our programs even better. As we move from being a new medical school, we’re moving from doing things the first time to doing things better the second and third time.”
“Clinicians seek continual quality improvement in all clinical activities, and we’re doing the same type of continual quality improvement for all of our educational programs, administrative areas, and research areas,” Dr. Jenson added. “Continual improvement is embedded in our strategic plan, and that’s why we have action plans every year as part of our strategic plan.”
Dr. Jenson said he is thankful for the hard work of everyone within the WMed community who took part in the many meetings and documented the work being done at WMed as part of the accreditation process for HLC and LCME.
“HLC and LCME accreditation are key milestones for the medical school,” Dr. Jenson said. “Thank you to everyone for their hard work and dedication not only in building the programs of the medical school, but in documenting for the accrediting entities everything that we do.”