SLU Medical School on Life Support

On March 14, Saint Louis University Medical School accepted a status ruled by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education — LCME for short — which established the medical educational program noncompliant with six of the twelve standards, thereby placing it under a probationary period.

The LCME survey team conducted a visit for full accreditation in early October of 2016, concluding deficiencies strictly involving that of documentation, missed opportunities for a self-directed learning environment, curricular management discrepancies, and an abridgement of central oversight; because the educational shortcomings related solely to curricular content and not to that of patient care or physician medical practice, the medical school remains fully accredited.

“We are fully accredited from the standpoint that all students have the same right as any other student in a different medical school to sit on a national board and enter the National Resident Matching Program,” Vice President for Medical Affairs and Dean of SLU School of Medicine Kevin Behrns, M.D., said. “All our students and any future students we enroll will continue to exhibit the same rights during this probational period, but there are areas we need to fix to strengthen our educational program —there are certainly things we could improve upon.”

Of the required remediation that is necessary for the medical school to retain its accreditation status, it must comply with the missed standards following a 24-month span before it is reevaluated. These missed guidelines specifically include, but are not limited to, the mentioned: mission, planning, organization and integrity; academic and learning environments; competencies, curricular objectives and curricular design; curricular management, evaluation and enhancement; teaching, supervision, assessment and student and patient safety; and finally, student selection, assignment and progress.

Behrns elaborated on his strategy to remediate the work plan, which will consist of a two-part system. “Phase one will work to address the citations while phase two will look at a continuous quality improvement program for medical education,” he explained. Behrns further elaborated on phase one exhibiting an overall steering committee to oversee the process. Underneath this steering committee, there will be work groups designed to address the citations. These citations are centered around three groups, that which consist of documentation, curriculum management and central oversight.

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