recently found out that there are a few major differences in these two accrediting bodies. does anyone know what these major differences are? is COCA less strict in approving new school plans, which is contributing to the rapid proliferation of DO schools?
Only one major difference: that LCME has a strict rule that it will not accept any for profit schools and COCA does not have this clause.
If you compare their actual rules regulations and statements of purpose, COCA basically did to LCME what you did to your essays in undergrad. They took a pre-existing document (The LCME standards), changed every adjective to a synonym, and submitted it as their own work. Plagiarism light. The last two sentences are actually not exaggerations. I had to research some stuff on the for-profit stances of both organizations and if you open both documents in adjacent browser windows its effectively identical.
A minor difference: The LCME is technically a free standing independent organization while COCA is a subset of the AOA, but it is also set up in such a way where the AOA has no control over it. Similarly, though the AOA pays it, legally the AOA cannot toy with COCA's pay. So it might as well be a free standing organization as nothing the AOA can do can override COCA, despite it signing COCA's paychecks.
The proliferation of DO schools comes not from any permissiveness of the AOA/COCA over LCME, but rather from the fact that LCME likes to attach itself to major research institutions as research is a major wing of the allopathic education outcomes. DO schools care much less about having a strong pre-existing clinical/biologic research program at the affiliated institutions. The money and approval for new schools comes from the federal and state governments. The LCME and COCA compete for these approvals and both groups are opening new schools left and right nowadays (it was different 7-10 years ago when it was all new DO schools. but don't let anyone tell you otherwise now, because its factually no longer the case). The issue is COCA isn't limiting itself to major institutions. It simply wants to be affiliated with regionally recognized institutions, at the least. This gives it more opportunities to apply for approval from state and federal, and for a long while they were using that ease to out-compete allopathic schools for the funds. Its pretty even now.
Hope that was clear. The differences between them are effectively non-existent except for the for-profit clause.
