Dr. Nora's letter on provisional accreditation
June 14, 2012
Dear TCMC Community,
Over the past year, on several occasions, I have communicated decisions of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) regarding The Commonwealth Medical Colleges (TCMC) accreditation status to you. I am pleased to do so again today.
TCMC was reviewed by the LCME at its June meeting. The LCME review included consideration of various materials and the findings of a site visit team that reviewed TCMC earlier this year. The site visit teams findings were based on their analysis of an extensive database, our institutional self-study, the TCMC student survey, and three days of on-the-ground inspection at TCMC. I reported the findings of the survey team to you earlier this year; they can be found in two letters from January 2012 and July 2011.
I am absolutely thrilled to inform you that the LCME has taken TCMC off probation and has advanced us to provisional accreditation status. Further, the LCME has determined that resources appear adequate to permit us to expand our class size to 100 students as scheduled in fall 2013.
Moving forward, the LCME will require a status report relating to permanent leadership across the institution (LCME Standard IS-11) and resource stability and sustainability (LCME Standard ER-2) to be submitted for review at its February 2013 meeting. After review of that status report, the LCME will schedule the full survey site visit necessary for TCMCs advancement to full accreditation status. The scheduling will likely result in TCMC achieving full accreditation status sometime during the 2013-14 academic year. Provisional accreditation status will not impact our graduating charter class in any way.
In recent months, we have taken important steps to address the issue of permanent leadership across the institution. We have outstanding institutional leaders in positions that were previously vacant or were held by interim leaders. These leaders include: Dr. Maureen McLeod as Chair of Basic Sciences; Linda Berardi-Demo, MPA, as Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Admissions; Andrea DiMattia, MEd, as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Faculty Development; Dr. Valerie Weber as Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs; and Dr. Christian Adonizio as Assistant Dean for Clinical Education. We are moving forward with hiring additional faculty members. The search for the permanent CEO/Dean is well underway.
We are also working to bring additional resources to the College to ensure the long term financial health of the school. I expect that the positive decisions of the LCME will reassure local and national donors and supporters of the quality, value, and permanence of our College. If you have not made your gift to the school for this year, I encourage you to join me in doing so.
The decisions of the LCME are great for TCMC and even better for the people of the 16 counties that we serve. I congratulate the many faculty, staff, and students in the TCMC community who were instrumental in doing the work and achieving the outcomes that have led to our coming off of probation and achieving provisional accreditation status. I thank from the bottom of my heart the students, parents, faculty, staff, donors, friends and volunteers who have remained stalwart supporters of the school during this challenging probation year. You recognized the importance of, and you have helped create and sustain, this amazing school. I hope that you take particular pleasure and pride in this excellent result.
Congratulations, TCMC!! Well done. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Lois Margaret Nora, MD, JD
Interim President and Dean
The Commonwealth Medical College
