Okie doke, so this subject came up last year and I looked into it. In short, the research I did resolved my doubts, and I ultimately chose to attend GWU over other offers of acceptance. I’ll try to replicate that info here.
So, for background, the LCME Accredation Probation was placed on GWU SMHS in 2008 and removed in early 2010. To give some context, this status isn’t quite as uncommon as the Wikipedia article purports: currently, Rosalind Franklin, the University of Louisville, and Baylor are some of the MD schools on LCME probation (the other two are in Puerto Rico and Canada). Other schools with recently-resolved probationary status include
Marshall Edwards,
TCMC,
UT San Antonio, and
SUNY Upstate. But just because other schools have incurred probationary status doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. So, it’s worth investigating why GWU SMHS was put on probation and if those issues have been resolved. The reasons behind the 2008 probationary status that I can find in the Wikipedia article or the related article in the
Washington Post are:
1. An “outdated system of managing its curriculum, [and] the curriculum itself." To that point, the
Revised Curriculum is starting this fall! Central themes of the revision include creating more active student involvement in learning, more integration between basic sciences and clinical training, and greater utilization of technology for education. Other US schools are making similar changes to their curriculum, including the
University of Indiana, the
University of Minnesota,
OHSU,
Harvard, and many others. These elements lead me to believe that GWU is currently keeping abreast with national trends in curriculum management without issue.
2. “High levels of student debt.” The two largest contributing factors to COA at GWU SMHS are
tuition and cost of living. In all fairness, the tuition itself is expensive to anyone except perhaps the independently wealthy. That said, it's not runaway compared to the cost of medical education in the US. Actually, it's exceeded by private schools in all regions - namely Tufts, Tulane, TCMC, Geisel, AMC, Temple, WashU, Duke, Harvard, Columbia, Case Western, Boston U, USC, Georgetown, and Penn State in that order (as found in the MSAR). On the other hand, cost of living is high because Foggy Bottom is one of the
most expensive neighborhoods in one of the most expensive cities in the US
(1) (2) (3). This is obviously important to take into account in your choice of school, but not really within GWU SMHS's purview. It's worth noting that DC’s neighboring MD school, Georgetown, has an average student indebtedness that
exceeds GWU’s by about $20,000 per student. In addition, GWU has a lower average student indebtedness than several MD schools who were not placed on probation for this reason – including fellow private schools Georgetown, Temple, Morehouse, Creighton, Boston U, Drexel, Rush, and Tufts – suggesting that the student indebtedness incurred by graduates of these schools is not longer cause for concern to the LCME.
3. “Inadequate study and lounge space for its students.” The LCME and I will have to agree to disagree on this one. Honestly, I just don’t care how much lounge space there is. I don’t doubt that there are people who
do care, I just think we have differences that I can’t address by citing sources. As for study space, I thought it was more than adequate when I visited the school: access to all four floors Himmelfarb Library is
reserved for use by health sciences students exclusively, in addition to space in the actual medical school building and GW Hospital. Unless medical students need to starfish while they study, the space seemed fine to me.
4. “Conflicts of interest potentially subordinating the medical school as a teaching institution to the economic interests of Universal Health Services.” The
Washington Post article states that the conflict of interest in question was private compensation received by former provost John Williams. I can’t find any sources to clarify how, and to what degree, GWU SMHS is culpable for hiring someone with that level of conflict of interest, but the issue
was addressed in part by asking Williams and SMHS’s dean at the time to resign. The rest of that paragraph, which talks about “deficient-implementation [sic] of new ACGME medical resident work hours rules,” seems to be a non sequitur. The 2009
NEJM article cited in Wikipedia mentions no specific medical schools or hospitals, and, so far as I can tell, doesn’t really have much to do with GWU or LCME accredation at all. Rather, it talks in general about the negative effects of overworking medical residents. I’m really not sure how the contributor to the Wikipedia article made an association between this research and GWU.
As for the "other, much more serious, problems" that the Wikipedia article editorializes, I can't find any logic behind suggesting that these elements were linked to action by the LCME. Actually, the issues are both misleading and outdated at best:
“With respect to putative LCME allegations of trainee abuse, the District of Columbia Department of Human Rights [sic] subsequently ruled that a medical student was unfairly expelled in direct retaliation for lodging an internal complaint about a GW faculty member. This civil case is still pending…” First of all, the citation for this point
leads to another Wikipedia article, and further hilarity ensues when we realize that the linked Wikipedia article contains no evidence or information on the subject at all. Second, this civil case is
not still pending. An order on the case in question was made two and a half years ago. Any claim of irresponsibility or violations by GWU SMHS was denied by the court, citing among other things that “
the precise legal theories upon which Hajjar-Nejad intended to rely are not clear.” Another memorandum opionion says that, "
accordingly, this action is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE in its entirety." For context, the specific case refers to a claim made by a dismissed medical student (Hajjar-Nejad) who said that his dismissal violated the contract between him and GWU SMHS outlined in the Offer of Acceptance. It sounds like he was really just kind of a d-bag.
The second "more serious problem" the Wikipedia article mentions is "another case claiming illegal billing of medicare [sic] for work done by residents and nurse anesthesists.” This case is also not pending. It was concluded about six and a half years ago. Basically, the court said that the CRNAs making claims against GW Hospital “
failed in many instances to provide the Court with the essential link between their arguments and the evidence in the record that would support their arguments. Too frequently the Relators [the CRNAs] make bald assertions or generalized arguments without directing the Court to the part of the record that would suport their assertions or arguments.” Also, if, for funsies, we were to find that this billing by GW Hospital was in fact incorrect, I'm left to wonder what this has to do with the undergraduate medical program or LCME. Fraudulent billing at Brigham and Women's wouldn't mean that HMS sucked, yeah?
TL;DR: Wikipedia is a nice jumping-off point, but don't make important decisions based on its information alone. This particular Wikipedia article seems to suck in particular.
TL;DR #2: Resolution of the 2008 LCME Probationary Status was good enough for me yo!!!1!1!
I know this is probably riddled with typos, so I'll try to reread later and fix that. Anyhow, hope this helps :3
