UGME ACCREDITATION UPDATE - December 2012

In August 15, 2012, a UGME accreditation status report was sent to the two accrediting bodies, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) and the Committee for the Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS).  The report provided an update since the April 2011 accreditation survey visit.

In October 2012, the Faculty received a joint LCME/CACMS response to the August 2012 report, indicating UGME Program had moved forward, and the Faculty has been asked to provide the LCME and CACMS with another status/update report on the ongoing progress towards full compliance next year, in August 2013.

On December 5 and 6, the LCME and CACMS provided a Consult visit with the two Secretaries of the LCME and CACMS.  The LCME and CACMS Secretaries:

• Dr. Barbara Barzansky PhD, Secretary, LCME - is Secretary of the American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Medical Education and Secretary of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. 
  
• Dr. Geneviève Moineau, Vice President, Education and Secretary, CACMS/CACME - is the Vice-President of Education at the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC), the Secretary to the Committee for Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS) and the Secretary to the Committee on Accreditation of Continuing Medical Education (CACME). Dr. Moineau was one of our Mock Accreditation surveyors in October 2010 and she completed an external review of our UGME curriculum in 2008.

The Secretaries noted they were visiting as consultants to help provide direction and clarification regarding the report to be prepared for August 2013.  As such, no documentation was required of the Faculty for the consult visit and no consult report will be prepared by the Secretaries, who will only convey back to their respective Board of Directors that they were at the Faculty and met with many participants and had good discussion.  The Secretaries do not participate in the decision about the medical school. 

Over the two half days of the visit, the Secretaries met with more than 40 faculty, staff, residents, students and WRHA partners who will be contributing content to the August 2013 report.  

The Secretaries provided valuable feedback at each meeting regarding clarity of reporting to the Boards of LCME and CACMS, and offered suggestions on how to provide examples which confirm compliance with the standards.  The Faculty has hosted two consult visits in the past, in 2008 and March 2010, and found them to be beneficial in working towards compliance with the standards.

UGME ACCREDITATION UPDATE - November 2011

The Faculty was advised late October 2011, that the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS) and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), voted jointly to continue the accreditation of our Faculty of Medicine UGME Program.  This decision followed 21 months of preparation with more than 100 faculty, staff, students, residents, and internal and external partners, and included a requested LCME/CACMS Consultation Visit, and a Mock Survey, prior to the full UGME accreditation survey of April 3-6, 2011.

Canadian and American medical schools face a rigorous and intense accreditation process during which 131 UGME accreditation standards are assessed. In the surveyors’ final report of late October to the University of Manitoba, they acknowledged the Faculty’s remarkable effort and team approach.

The Faculty will be providing a follow-up status report in August 2012 to the LCME and CACMS.  It is expected that compliance with all standard areas is to be achieved within two years of the joint accreditation letter.

Accreditation cannot be viewed as an end point, but must be an ongoing quality assurance process that continually enhances the MD education program and student experience, and improves accountability to the public we serve. To that end, the UGME Task Force overseeing the survey preparations, chaired by Dean Postl, will continue meeting as an Accreditation Steering Committee, to ensure the Faculty continues working towards, and maintaining, full compliance in all areas of the standards.  For each of the five areas of standards, (i.e. Institutional Setting, Educational Standards for the MD Degree, Medical Students, Faculty, Educational Resources) a standing committee or working group of the Faculty is taking the lead to ensure compliance.

One key area to be included in the August 2012 status report is our extensive Curriculum Renewal (CuRe) process, under the direction of Dr. Keevin Bernstein.  Following an April 2011 Curriculum Renewal Faculty Retreat, 11 CuRe task groups were established in June 2011, with broad representation from faculty, staff, students and residents, to review all areas of the curriculum, from clinical skills to informatics, professionalism to social accountability. The goal is for the Faculty to roll out a renewed UGME curriculum in 2013.

The task groups completed their work and their recommendations are being presented at two Faculty-wide forums in December 2011.  Recommendations are also available on the curriculum renewal webpage: http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/medicine/education/undergraduate/curriculum/curriculumrenewal.html  The next challenge is to collate all the task group reports, and feedback to put together a Curriculum 2013.

Mapping of the UGME curriculum, initiated in 2010, continues.  This is a significant enabler for the new curriculum, as this activity will identify gaps and redundancies, ensuring required elements of the curriculum are being taught and reinforced.  Mapping requires linking the overall UGME Program Learning Objectives, to individual course and clerkship objectives, to each session objective, and finally to examination questions.  This work has been led by our Medical Education faculty, Joanne Hamilton and Dr. Charlotte Rhodes, in consultation with Course and Clerkship Directors.

The Faculty’s challenges remain in the standard areas identified by the survey team including ensuring comparability of clerkship learning sites; Faculty evaluation of courses, clerkships, electives; timeliness of mid-rotation student evaluation; building an effective academic, residency and career counseling program; and continuing efforts to ensure a learning environment which promotes appropriate professionalism.  Work continues in all areas, as the Faculty remains committed to building the accreditation standards into the regular way of doing business.

LCME NEW "CONNECTIONS" DOCUMENT,November 2011

LCME announced they have now linked a series of accreditation standards documents previously found in multiple locations on their website.  The “Connections” document provides an integrated view of LCME accreditation standards by connecting the text of each standard to (1) its corresponding annotation, (2) the medical education database questions related to that standard, (3) the questions that the institutional self-study committee must address and (4) the findings that survey team members must document in the survey report.  Over time, the LCME Secretariat will add additional information to the Connections document, including information about the frequency with which individual standards are cited, the specific nature of those citations, and a section for "Secretariat Comments" about the areas of noncompliance identified by teams during survey visits.

Read Connections for each standard here: http://www.lcme.org/connections.htm

Following 21 months of preparation, which began June 2009, and included a requested Consultation Visit and a Mock Survey, the UGME Program underwent its accreditation survey from Sunday, April 3 to Wednesday, April 6, led by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) and the Committee for the Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS). 

More than 100 persons within and outside the Faculty have been involved in an accreditation committee or working group, and the accreditation Self Study process has been very beneficial, strengthening working relationships, and producing improvements with immediate and future benefit. The Manitoba Medical Students Association coordinated the required student independent accreditation analysis which was most thorough and helpful, and was recognized for its completeness by the surveyors.

The six member survey team included: Dr. James Rourke (Lead),  Dean of Medicine, Memorial, Nfld; Dr. Nick Busing (Team Secretary), President & CEO, Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada; Dr. M. Clifford Fabian, Faculty Lead, Accreditation, University of BC MD Undergraduate Program; Dr. David Swee, Associate Dean for Education, New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; Dr. Martin Schreiber, Director, PreClerkship, U of Toronto; and Mr. Derrick Williams, BSc; CACMS Student, University of BC.

Day 1, Sunday, the survey team met at length with the Dean and Associate Dean, UGME.  The second day was devoted to the curriculum, courses, clerkships, the OPAL curriculum management system reporting and included a student-led tour of Bannatyne campus and a lunch with PreClerkship Students.  Day 3 focused on standards related to medical student admission, counseling, health services, examination and promotion, medical student research opportunities, as well as a student-led tour of medical student areas at Health Sciences Centre and St. Boniface Hospital and a second lunch with Year Two, Three and Four Students.  The last day included a breakfast with junior faculty, a discussion of standards related to faculty and the university community in which the medical school is sited, concluding with a short, exit interview with the surveyors, President Barnard, the Dean and Associate Dean, UGME.

On Wednesday, April 16, the Dean hosted a Faculty-wide, post accreditation Town Hall session and provided an overview of the exit interview and the brief report provided by the survey team.  The surveyors exit interview and report are prescribed in terms of format and delivery of summarized findings of the team.  They noted that the Faculty benefits from a re-energized leadership, a faculty engaged in the educational program, and key resources such as the Clinical Learning and Simulation Facility and the OPAL system; the Faculty operates with appropriate financial resources and has the support of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and the Provincial Government.

The Faculty’s challenges remain in the standard areas identified by the survey team including ensuring comparability of clerkship learning sites; Faculty evaluation of courses, clerkships, electives; timeliness of mid-rotation student evaluation; building an effective academic, residency and career counseling program; and continuing efforts to ensure a learning environment which promotes appropriate professionalism.  The Faculty anticipate receipt of a detailed, draft report of the surveyors’ findings sometime in June 2011, and the Faculty will have two weeks to provide feedback regarding errors, omissions or tone of the report.  The final determination of the accreditation status will come in October 2011, following the deliberations of the LCME and CACMS Boards of Directors.

Work continues in all areas noted by the surveyors, with responsibility and tasks identified, as the Faculty moves forward, committed to building the accreditation standards into the regular way of doing business.