The College of Medicine’s integrated planning processes, strong partnerships in recruitment, education and community engagement, its leadership in social accountability, and its “exceptionally supportive” services for students and residents in Regina were among its strengths described in the report announcing the continuation of accreditation for another eight years, the maximum term permitted.

For the college’s dean, Dr. William Albritton, the accomplishment is to be shared by many in the college, but it is only part of the picture. “We should aspire to something much higher than accreditation. It’s what we do beyond accreditation that separates us from the other 180 or so medical schools in North America, so striving for excellence should happen all the time.”

Albritton said even though the college has just received the eight-year accreditation renewal, the CACMS/LCME secretariat will do a fact-finding visit in the spring of 2011 to look specifically at preparations for accommodating more students. On the agenda for that visit will be the progress on the Academic Health Sciences project, how faculty numbers are being expanded in concert with enrolment, and finances. The college currently accepts 84 medical students per year and has plans to increase that number to 100 by the fall of 2011.

Preparing for accreditation visits is an enormous amount of work for a college, and Albritton said faculties of medicine in Canada are moving toward implementing a mid-term internal survey so they do not have to wait eight years between visits to ensure they are meeting the standards.

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For more information, contact:

Laura Herman
College of Medicine
University of Saskatchewan
Tel: (306) 966-6059 or Cell: (306) 262-6059
Email: laura.herman@usask.ca