Dear Students and Colleagues,
On Tuesday, December 1, 2015, the Faculty of Medicine submitted the official Undergraduate Medical Education (UGME) Accreditation Action Plan to the Committee on the Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS), on schedule. This is the second milestone in our CACMS timeline to address the MDCM program’s probationary status.
This action plan incorporates input received from the CACMS Secretariat during its two-day visit with us in September, as well as naming and formatting conventions prescribed by them. It is robust, measurable and feasible, and builds on the preliminary plan shared last June. We now look forward to feedback from CACMS in early 2016.
We are on track with the implementation of our action plan, highlights of which are provided below. The plan and other relevant information are available to you at all times online for your review.
When the CACMS Secretariat visited us in September, it identified key areas that needed attention, including the Curriculum Committee. Consequently, a close analysis of the program governance, as articulated in the CACMS standards, and our Curriculum Committee was led by Acting Associate Dean Donald Boudreau. It concluded that the Committee’s responsibilities over time had outstretched its capacity to perform effectively. In October, a new, more robust MDCM Program Committee was proposed and approved to provide executive-level oversight and to reassign responsibilities across eight subcommittees. Details are available under Element 8.1, page 36, of the action plan.
With the new structure in place, the Accreditation Implementation Committee has been reconstituted and will henceforth serve in an oversight capacity, as reflected in its updated terms of reference.
As part of our goal to reinforce the Faculty’s Accreditation Office, we are pleased to announce the appointment of a Director of Accreditation, UGME, Dr. Douglass Dalton, McGill professor and former Postgraduate Family Medicine Director. Additionally, the newly created position of Associate Director, Accreditation Office, has been filled by Ms. Catherine Millar, who will work closely with Accreditation Officer Natalie Phillips-Elgar to implement a quality assurance approach to accreditation across the Faculty.
Our recruitment efforts for the newly created position of Vice-Dean, Education, and the new Associate Dean, UGME, are progressing very well.
- The Faculty Council referred to under Element 1.3 of the action plan is close to 100 per cent constituted, with a first meeting scheduled for early 2016.
- A comprehensive review of the Gatineau Integrated Clerkship has been mandated, while the Faculty continues to explore the opportunity of upgrading to a geographically distributed campus, as per Elements 2.6, 4.5 and 12.4.
- Progress has been made to improve clinical infrastructure and resources for students, as described under Elements 5.6 and 5.11.
- The MDCM program objectives have been revised, approved, posted on the UGME website and communicated to students, as described under Element 6.1.
- A new segment called “Our UGME” has been built into student recall days during clerkships to communicate program updates, including, but not limited to curriculum changes, workload policy, mistreatment outcomes and other topics, as described under Elements 3.6, 6.1, 8.8 and 9.3.
- A taxonomy to aid in the mapping of curricular objectives to specific courses and overall program objectives has been finalized, and a new curriculum inventory database is being developed, as per Elements 8.2 and 8.3.
- A comprehensive internal survey of our students’ medical education experience will be conducted beginning in 2016, and repeated every second year, to measure outcomes for actions related to accreditation standards and elements.
Additional progress and details are available here.
Once again, I will take this opportunity to thank all those involved in this accreditation process. There are countless faculty, students and staff members who are contributing invaluably to this effort to everyone’s benefit, most importantly, that of our students.
Sincerely,
Vice-Principal (Health Affairs)
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
December 10, 2015