The Caribbean Accreditation Authority in Medicine and the Health Professions (CAAM-HP) has accredited The UWI’s range of medical programmes for the period 2012-2017.
The complex exercise required collaboration among UWI’s three Faculties of Medicine on its residential campuses at Mt Hope, Mona and Cave Hill, and its Bahamas Clinical Medical programme, to allow for institutional accreditation as a single UWI School of Medicine programme.
Accreditation reviewers commended the institution on its draft Strategic Plan and its approach to a multi-campus, multi-territory university, and noted “the great potential for innovation and diversity among the campuses, while achieving common assessments and outcomes.” Others strengths noted by the review team included a committed, motivated and collegial faculty; strong and effective leadership by Dean and Directors; a good patient mix; and importantly, well-trained graduate output.
The Medical faculty is a flagship UWI programme since the inception of the regional institution in 1948.
The CAAM-HP itself was reviewed in 2011 by a team from the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) and the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER), and was granted recognition in May 2012 for a ten-year term.
A new policy announced on September 21, 2011 means that effective 2023, physicians applying for ECFMG (Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, the body responsible for certifying international medical graduates who wish to enter graduate medical education programmes in the USA), certification will be required to graduate from a medical school that has been appropriately accredited. To satisfy this requirement, the physician’s medical school must be accredited through a formal process that uses criteria comparable to those established for US medical schools by the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME) or that uses other globally accepted criteria such as those put forth by the WFME.
The CAAM-HP accepted the invitation to be the first accrediting body reviewed in this pilot process which involved completion and submission of the Criteria for Recognition of an Accrediting Agency Questionnaire. In addition, a four-member observer team of representatives from the WFME and FAIMER accompanied the site visit team to St George’s University School of Medicine to Grenada and six hospitals in the New York region
CAAM-HP is the first accrediting body recognized through this new process. |
