The Carle Illinois College of Medicine has been granted provisional accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education following an in-depth review of educational and program quality standards. Provisional accreditation moves the college’s engineering-based M.D. degree program one step closer to full accreditation in 2022.
“This is a great accomplishment and another historic milestone for a groundbreaking new kind of medical school,” Chancellor Robert J. Jones said. “The post-COVID-19 world is going to need innovations in health care and medicine more than ever, and this is an important step in positioning Carle Illinois to lead the way.”
LCME reviews and accredits medical education programs in the U.S. and Canada that lead to a medical doctorate degree. Accreditation of a new medical school is a multistage process in which the school must demonstrate that it complies with LCME standards for educational quality, said Dr. King Li, the dean of Carle Illinois. Provisional accreditation affirms that a medical school meets nationally accepted standards of educational quality and can move forward with plans to build a sustainable medical education program.
“Building a new medical school is intensive work, from developing an innovative curriculum and recruiting world-class faculty, to designing the academic and clinical programs that support the education of outstanding physicians,” Li said. “Achieving provisional accreditation is an important milestone that validates those efforts and our unique approach to medical education.”
Carle Illinois gained preliminary accreditation from LCME in 2017, opening the door to recruit students for its first class of 32 students in July 2018. The college submitted more than 1,000 pages of documentation in support of provisional accreditation, and an LCME peer-review committee made a virtual visit to the college in August to gather input from key stakeholders.
“Accreditation is complex, but it is an important process that helps ensure that we are delivering on our promise and mission to provide quality medical education to our students,” said Iuliana Balascuta, the assistant dean for accreditation and assessment at Carle Illinois.
Balascuta said a full accreditation survey visit will generally take place when the inaugural class – in this case, the Carle Illinois class of 2022 – is in its final year. This process for Carle Illinois may be delayed due to COVID-19. M.D. training programs are reaccredited by LCME every eight years to ensure they continue to meet standards.
Carle Illinois College of Medicine was created in 2015 as the world’s first medical college to incorporate engineering and technology principles into medical education. The college is a partnership between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Carle Health.
Editor’s note: For more information, contact Charlie Simpson, executive director of marketing and communication, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, 217-300-4519, csimp@illinois.edu.