Guest blog by Kent Stobart, Vice-Dean Medical Education

I’m pleased to say that “what happens now” is in fact already happening. Several people are progressing on the work we have before us to ensure a successful accreditation outcome this fall. There is still a great deal to do, however.

First, though, I want to emphasize some basic, but very important, messages with regard to UGME accreditation:

• Our program is not on probation.
• Our program is fully accredited and always has been.
• We are confident that we will not be on probation after the 2017 full site accreditation visit.
• For the 2017 accreditation visit, our goal is to achieve a full eight-year accreditation, the best possible result – we are shooting for a “PB” (personal best), as the dean wrote in his recent blog just after the mock visit.
• Our ultimate goal, however, is a quality UGME program, and accreditation is a means of keeping us accountable and structured in achieving our goal.

Please help your college out by sharing the above messages at every opportunity!

Also, some further clarification regarding our college’s accreditation history: we have been on accreditation probation twice in the past, but we are not on probation now and haven’t been since October 2015. Probation does not mean “not accredited.” It’s a warning status that indicates accreditation is at risk. Medical education programs remain fully accredited when on probation, but must work to resolve the accreditation issues that have resulted in the probationary status. Thus, though we have been on probation twice in the past, our school has always been fully accredited.

Now, back to the work we have to do between now and the full visit.

That work will include improvements in how we do things and we will be sharing these improvements and our progress towards a successful accreditation visit with you on a weekly basis. We will also be doing more to prepare all our visit participants well in advance of the visit. Ensuring that our students have current and useful information to support their success and that our faculty have the information and resources needed to do their jobs are part of this work. We can’t achieve this in a vacuum, though—we need your help. If there is a problem, we need to know.

Generally, much of the information that supports our students and faculty in their roles is found on the college website as well as in One45. For students, important information to be familiar with to support your success in the UGME program includes curriculum information, program and learning objectives, the Student Information Guide and the Student Guide to Clerkship, syllabi and student policies. For faculty, knowing curriculum information and processes, program objectives, collegial processes and policies and procedures are key areas that support your success. Undeniably, we have ongoing improvements to make in our processes and how we communicate with you to support your roles.

So, how are we approaching the accreditation-focused work of the next several months?

We have a plan in place and people identified to lead all of the areas of work.

There are some clear priorities we must set, as we have a pressing deadline to meet: we must update and submit our Data Collection Instrument (DCI) by June 19, 2017.

Our students have played an important role already in our post-mock work with their recent completion of a Modified Student Survey. The level of participation from our students—80 percent!—was extraordinary given the timelines involved, so a huge thank you to all our medical students for your support through completing the survey. It will supplement the Independent Student Survey (ISA) completed last spring by providing updated information from our students in key areas.

We have an Accreditation Executive Team (AET) that is meeting to discuss and update progress three times a week from now until the accreditation visit, and is composed of: myself; Athena McConnell, assistant dean quality; Pat Blakley, associate dean UGME; Marianne Bell, accreditation specialist; Greg Power, chief operating officer; Sinead McGartland, Senior Project Leader; Alyson Rees, executive assistant to the dean; and Kate Blau, communications specialist. The dean joins us at these meetings, as well.

Focus areas for improvements and leaders for each have been identified. They are:

• Curriculum Improvements – Regina Gjevres, assistant dean curriculum
• Learning Environment/Student Services – Bindu Nair, assistant dean student services
• Educational Resources – Meredith McKague, assistant dean academic
• Faculty – Sheila Harding
• Admissions – Barry Ziola, director, admissions
• Administration – Greg Power
• Modified Student Survey – Athena McConnell
• Student Improvements Resulting from the ISA – Pat Blakley
• Quality Accreditation Visit – Sinead McGartland

Our June submission deadline is approaching fast! That means you may be hearing from one or more of our focus area leads or others as we work together to ensure we have solid information pulled together in the DCI. Please, support all requests effectively and efficiently and be sure to ask for more information if you need it, in your work to respond.

We have identified certain accreditation elements as critical and we will tackle these first. Next, we will focus on elements deemed urgent, followed by those deemed high priority. Communication about progress towards our accreditation visit will be shared with you through weekly updates in our college e-news, in this blog, through monthly Medical Student Updates, and through college website news stories that will serve to highlight involvement of different participants in this work. General information is also provided on the UGME accreditation web page on our college website.

For our actual visit participants, we will provide you with significantly more time, support and focused preparation. Watch for information coming directly to you via email—as few and as streamlined as possible; we have several improvements already planned here—that includes save-the-date information, invitations with automated RSVPs for both preparation sessions and actual visit meetings, and orientation materials. With some exceptions, actual visit participants will be primarily those who participated in the mock accreditation visit last month.

Finally, questions can be directed to me, to Athena McConnell and to Pat Blakley, as well as our focus area leads and any member of the AET.

I thank the dean for providing space to me for this message.