DO schools are accredited by a different entity (it's an AOA commission called COCA). The risk of losing accreditation is minuscule to nonexistent for the older established schools. I don't foresee any DO schools losing accredidation in the near future. My understanding is that San Juan Bautista really screwed up.
Juan Bautista suffered from some real issues that are completely unique to its situation. Its class had a GPA and MCAT avg *far* below any other LCME school out there. It had a reliance on a few sites that were 1) not contractually tied to them and 2) "few" its worth stressing that.
So when a hospital dumps them/closes and they are entirely focused on education within the PR island itself, suddenly a massive source of their clinical education has dried up. When you're a school that the LCME is already treating as "unique" to allow it to have lower admission standards, and suddenly you have lost a huge portion of your clinical education... well... the hammer is gonna fall.
Now can this happen to a US DO school? Very unlikely. J.Baustista had a long time to do something about this problem. This didnt happen overnight. IDK how much the students were told, but this loss of accreditation was a long time coming. The fact that the school did nothing to rectify this is despicable. Their reasoning is that they are focused on Puerto Rico itself and there simply are not enough hospitals willing to affiliate and take on their education, forcing many students into local preceptorships, which are only good as a supporting adjunct for a strong hospital based clinical education, not the primary basis of the education. Any DO school with a similar problem (mine, for example) would call in every favor they can to make sure they have everything their students need.
Lets examine where TouroNY (a perfect example in this case, not just cause i go there) differs from J.Bautista. J Bautista loses its hospital. It more or less abandons the framework of clinical education it had planned. It begins shipping students off to local clinics, and generally undesirable locations, which may or may not provide enough formal education. May or may not doesn't fly with the LCME. They are warned this is a problem. Nothing is done on the matter. Accreditation lost. Touro has about 2/3 of their students destined to go to Harlem Hospital. St. George's signs the exclusive deal and boots out all the american students. Touro moves their student majority to North General and Lennox Hill. When within a year North Gen closed and Lennox Hill became Ross territory, we were again without any major affiliations (as our Touro affiliations are a Hospital in Queens, and two Upstate NY sites). The school decided to replan its clinical education model. Now we have 7-8 hospitals in North Jersey giving us and UMNDJ (allopathic) pretty much a combined monopoly on every big hospital worth having up there. We also added some spots in Staten Island and in Rockland County (a NYC Suburb). In short we changed our plans from being a manhattan based clinical education site to a NY metro area trained school.
If Juan Bautista had the ability to move off of the island (honestly, they probably didnt) they should have expanded and saved their students from this nonsense. No American school has the absolute geographic requirement that SJB had. They really dont. We can always expand and find suitable hospitals. It all depends on how desperate the situations are.
Also to go back to a point I made recently: No medical school (Either degree) in the 50 states has lost accreditation in about 95 years. Also, despite what people seem to think, the only schools that have *closed* in recent years have been long established schools that simply haven't turned enough of a profit (Oral Roberts, I'm looking at you!). But med schools, in general, are very profitable businesses (especially given they are non-profit). This is especially true for new schools who often see droves of applicants for a reason I cannot fully understand, but is an observed phenomenon. New Schools are no more at risk than established schools. And if you're looking at stats alone you get the (out of context) fact that older schools are at a higher risk of closing than new schools.
Want an informative response? DocEspana will be here in 3, 2, 1....
Sorry I'm late. I was watching the Jets.
Seriously, DocEspana should run for AOA president in the future. He's got my vote, if I get a vote that is lol
Psh. I run in the AMA circles my man. Not the AOA. I can't take the crazy. But I'll be happy to represent for my DO brethern. Oh lets be honest, I could never run... too many skeletons in my spanish closet.
See his/her comments on how Ross poached some NYC spots.
Unless the hospital shares the name, mission, infrastructure as the school, there is a non zero chance that the clinical rotation sites dry up.
his.
👍. And yea, if you do not have a complete attachment to your hospital you will stand a chance of being kicked out of it. Also... sometimes thats not enough. See: OBGYN rotations at SUNY Downstate Medical Center (Where SUNY Downstate Medical school is located within). They no longer take students from their own school. ABSURD!
