Northwestern Gen-Surg department under "Probationary accreditation"

[BlackPuma]

ok, I saw this under the Yale "accredition" lost thread!?

is this true about Northwestern?! how does a school lose accredition, why do they lose accredition?! and does that reflect badly on the residents or the medical students or is it just administrative stuff?!

so what happens when they lose accredition?! do they lose funding or something?

how often does this happen, and is there anyway of checking other schools?!

this is the first time I've heard of such a thing..and it is really mind boggling...

thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[focker]

It is true. You can check for yourself at the acgme website. I'm very curious about this as well, since I'm an M1 at NU. I only read about it today in the same thread as you. I may ask around to see what people around here say.

 

[gel1]

From the acgme site, it appears that UCLA surgery is in the same situation as Northwestern. Probation sounds serious, but I wonder exactly what it means. Also, I wish the website had more details about the reasons why some programs aren't doing so well.

The link to the site is <a href="http://www.acgme.org" target="_blank">acgme.org</a>

 

[CANES2006]

What the hell is wrong with these schools? It seems that going to a no-name school is actually better now.

 

[BlackPuma]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by gel1:
•From the acgme site, it appears that UCLA surgery is in the same situation as Northwestern. Probation sounds serious, but I wonder exactly what it means. Also, I wish the website had more details about the reasons why some programs aren't doing so well.

The link to the site is <a href="http://www.acgme.org" target="_blank">acgme.org</a>•••••this is really disturbing...so if you were in a residency program that lost accredition, would that reflect badly on the applicant?!

that sux...I would hope that the medical school bears the responsibility and not the medical student...

so I guess it basically means, that if you do plan to go to UCLA or Northwestern...don't plan on going to their surgery programs because they have lost accredation.....I am sure that it doesnt even apply to a lot of studetns...because not everyone is planning to go into surgery anyway....top specialities are highly over-rated anyway...

so what causes a program to lose accredition? is this political?! or is there a real basis for this? so does this mean if you are a medical student within that school, and the surgery department received a probation or a suspension, does this mean that during ur rotations you won't get to rotate within that department?!?

that sounds extremely silly to me....

 

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

Hey all, I was just on that acgme website and heres what I learned:
The "essentials" of a program include rigid guidelines on the amount of time spent in different services/learning different skills. They also include alot of administrative bureaucratic things, etc, which have little or nothing to do with the quality of education.

My gut feeling is that while it looks bad, it probably isn't that big of a deal. The normal period of probation is 2 yrs, but that can be bumped up. Obviously programs of NW/UCLA/Yale caliber will not let themselves lose accreditation.

 

[sandflea]

from what i've heard, the whole accreditation thing sounds a lot scarier than it really is. no, of course it isn't a good situation, but it's not like the school is going to shut down. there is an unbelievable number of restrictions and policies that programs have to adhere to to be accredited, so getting that accreditation stripped may be a matter of some minor detail. i don't think there are any real implications for med students.

 

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

BTW Watcha, this doesnt mean the program is shut down or students can't rotate through. It most likely doesnt reflect at all on the quality of instruction or education.
I agree it would be nice if the site gave specifics. (but then again it might make them look petty).

 

[Hopkins2010]

While its not a catastrophic thing for the med students themselves, I think it is very very bad for future residents.

If they dont fix their program and get it re-accredited, they wont have any residents come to their program because it would be pointless to do so. The current residents probably are not in such dire straits, I'm sure the RRC has some provisional things that they can still get thru their course or switch programs and not suffer any ill effects.

But for a 4th year med student to enter a residency program which is not accredited is an insane thing to do, since their training will be virtually worthless on paper anyways.

 

[BlackPuma]

umm like I spent 30 minutes on that website...agme..or something...and I couldnt find a list of schools that got suspended or on probation?! I wanted to check other schools as well, does anyone have the exact url for that specific section?

thanks

 

[focker]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by WatchaMaCallit:
•umm like I spent 30 minutes on that website...agme..or something...and I couldnt find a list of schools that got suspended or on probation?! I wanted to check other schools as well, does anyone have the exact url for that specific section?

thanks•••••As far as I could tell, there is no specific section listing schools that are on probation. The only way to find them is by looking up individual programs that you are interested in.

 

[Jim Picotte]

I wouldn't worry about this right now guys. You're going to medical school and it's only pertinent if you plan on doing surgery at that particular hospital. The residency program and medical school are two totally different things. Because it's surgery, most likely they've lost accredidation because of work hours and teaching. The ACGME is starting to really stress work hours and not turn their head anymore when obvious violations are taking place. Even though they lost accrediation or on probation, they can regain that if they shape up which those programs most likely will.

I can tell you that this past year, I interviewed at one place that was going to be put on probation (starting July 2002) and I did not rank that place (I wouldn't have interviewed there if I would have known). If the program does close, all the residents are either transfered to another institution (like a scramble). You don't want to be at a place that looses it's accredidation (at least I don't).

For medical school, this is meaningless though, so don't worry about it.