A message from Gerry Cooper, Associate Dean

A few weeks ago, I attended an accreditation meeting for Schulich Medicine & Dentistry’s Continuing Professional Development program. This was one of a series of meetings the accreditors were attending during a two-day period. Accreditation is serious business and not to be taken lightly. Accreditors want to hear from a variety of stakeholders as they determine how well a program is doing with regard to a series of objective benchmarks also known as standards.

Accreditation processes provide us with important perspectives on how we can improve what we do.

That said, if we are doing our jobs properly, there should not be any surprises when the accreditors have their visits. The process of continual improvement should be so embedded within our culture that it is synonymous with who we are as an organization.

We should continually have discussions focused on our improvement so when the formal accreditation process rolls along, it is simply a higher level of what we have been doing for the past few years.

Of course, accreditors for the UME Accreditation will be experts in undergraduate medical education, but they are not necessarily familiar with our programs beyond what they have read in our briefing reports. Unquestionably, we will all want to prepare for our meetings with the accreditors for the UME Accreditation. And in doing so, ensure that we understand the School’s priorities, achievements and stories that highlight our successes.

Some may recall, I concluded my September newsletter remarks focusing on Schulich Medicine’s undergraduate medical education accreditation site visit scheduled for April 12-15, 2015. Much effort these days is connected to this accreditation process: refining our messaging and ensuring we have documentation to back up our claims. Accreditors will want to know how we know certain things: what evidence do we have to support our claims? Or, how do we know that our students are satisfied about that?

Preparatory sessions have begun and the Windsor Program’s Academic Leadership Group had its first opportunity to participate in a meeting a few weeks ago.

In some ways, this is historic. The previous accreditation process was conducted at a time when the Windsor Program had really just begun: we did not have students across all four years of the MD Program nor had we graduated anybody.

Much has changed since then.

Today, we can boast three complete cohorts of classes having graduated and with some very impressive match statistics regarding the CaRMS residency process. Our faculty numbers have risen steadily and they have been garnering some impressive teaching and mentorship awards. The Windsor-Essex community is happy to have the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry as part of the health and education infrastructure here. And we are leading the way in exploring new international collaborations.

These are all important and impressive stories that we need to convey to the accreditors who will arrive in April. The accreditors will have read through the Institutional Self-Survey documentation however they will be interested to hear the stories from our students, faculty, staff and community partners. And yes, these stories are serious business too. They are an important part of how we will illustrate that we are not just meeting the standards but excelling at them.

As is custom in late December, we’ll momentarily step away from our hectic work schedules to take some special time with our family, friends and those close to our hearts. As such, I would like to wish you and yours a very safe and joyous Holiday Season. I look forward to speaking with you again in 2015, a year that promises to be a very exciting one of us all. .