Accreditation 2027
Welcome Accreditation Stakeholders
Dear Colleagues,
As we approach our next accreditation survey by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), I want to take a moment to emphasize the importance of this process for our institution.
We are called to reflect on the learning environment and curriculum, responding to the ever-advancing field of medicine. We must be alert to the increasing student demands and the learning environment pressures for teacher and student. Ours must be a continuous, daily process of improvement for our students — and ultimately their future patients. This involves self-awareness, self-reflection, and action. The external validation of how we’re doing comes in the form of the LCME accreditation process every eight years. We’re at the start of that preparation period now.
We encourage members of our community to be engaged in the accreditation process. Your active participation and input are invaluable as we strive to maintain excellence in medical education and meet LCME standards.
Thank you for your dedication and commitment to our institution’s success.
Sincerely,
Norman J. Beauchamp, MD, MHS
Executive Vice President for Health Sciences
Executive Dean, School of Medicine
Accreditation Areas of Focus
Learning Environment
Ensuring that our students have a professional and productive learning environment is a top priority at GUSOM. We expect a high standard of respect and professionalism from all faculty, staff, and students, and have implemented mechanisms to ensure any negative behaviors can be appropriately addressed.
Current Efforts
- Student surveys to monitor the learning environment: AAMC Graduation Questionnaire (GQ)
- SOM/MedStar Health Pulse Survey
- Curricular evaluations from New Innovations
- Anonymous Reporting to the Medical Student Advisory Committee (MSLAC)
- Respect in the Learning Environment (RLE) Committee Joint UME/GME effort
- Provides education to faculty, serves as a reporting mechanism, and promotes a culture of professionalism
- Continued efforts to address bias in assessment
Relevant Resources
- Teacher-Learner Relationship & Procedures to Address Student Mistreatment – Student Handbook
- Procedures for Reporting an Incident of Mistreatment, Bias, or Harassment
Related LCME Elements
- 3.5 Learning Environment/Professionalism: A medical school ensures that the learning environment of its medical education program is conducive to the ongoing development of explicit and appropriate professional behaviors in its medical students, faculty, and staff at all locations. The medical school and its clinical affiliates share the responsibility for periodic evaluation of the learning environment in order to identify positive and negative influences on the maintenance of professional standards, develop and conduct appropriate strategies to enhance positive and mitigate negative influences, and identify and promptly correct violations of professional standards.
- 3.6 Student mistreatment: A medical school develops effective written policies that define mistreatment, has effective mechanisms in place for a prompt response to any complaints, and supports educational activities aimed at preventing mistreatment. Mechanisms for reporting mistreatment are understood by medical students, including visiting medical students, and ensure that any violations can be registered and investigated without fear of retaliation.
Infrastructure and Student Space
GUSOM recognizes the importance of ensuring that our students have access to comfortable and productive academic spaces. This includes comfortable study and lounge areas and secure storage both on campus and at clinical sites.
Current Efforts & Accomplishments:
- The Annex student study space has undergone significant improvements, with new furniture and flexible space design for group and individual study. Environmental upgrades include a new dual zone heating and cooling system and a sound-masking system.
- Improvements to the Dahlgren Memorial Library, including new carpeting, deep cleaning of furniture, and upgraded workstations.
- A brand-new student space has been developed in the lower level of Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center to serve as a dedicated study and lounge space for students on clinical rotations at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
- A/V system upgrades throughout academic spaces, including the ILC classrooms, SW107 and NE201C, and sound system upgrades in the DML TBL space.
- Funding to address deferred maintenance and general improvements of GUMC facilities. (Learn more about these improvements .)
Related LCME Elements
5.11 Study/Lounge/Storage Space/Call Rooms: A medical school ensures that its medical students at each campus and affiliated clinical site have adequate study space, lounge areas, personal lockers or other secure storage facilities, and secure call rooms if students are required to participate in late night or overnight clinical learning experiences.
Core Competencies, Curriculum, & Assessments
GUSOM sets high standards of achievement for its students, working to ensure program objectives, core competencies, assessment systems, and outcomes align with institutional goals.
Current Efforts
- Review of GUSOM 19 core competencies
- Working group in progress through May 2025
- Review in context of new AAMC UME competencies
- Step 1 initiatives
- 2024 Step 1 working group convened to provide recommendations
- Additional student and faculty supports and resources for Step 1
- Bias, equity, and clerkship grading
- Plan to renew a clerkship grading task force in 2025
- The Office of Assessment & Evaluation will conduct a retrospective review of clerkship grades to inform next steps
- February 2026 COME special review of clerkship grading
Related LCME Elements
- 6.1 Program and Learning Objectives: The faculty of a medical school define its medical education program objectives in outcome-based terms that allow the assessment of medical students’ progress in developing the competencies that the profession and the public expect of a physician. The medical school makes these medical education program objectives known to all medical students and faculty. In addition, the medical school ensures that the learning objectives for each required learning experience (e.g., course, clerkship) are made known to all medical students and those faculty, residents, and others with teaching and assessment responsibilities in those required experiences.
- 8.4 Evaluation of Educational Program Outcomes: A medical school collects and uses a variety of outcome data, including national norms of accomplishment, to demonstrate the extent to which medical students are achieving medical education program objectives and to enhance the quality of the medical education program as a whole. These data are collected during program enrollment and after program completion.
- 9.4 Assessment system: A medical school ensures that, throughout its medical education program, there is a centralized system in place that employs a variety of measures (including direct observation) for the assessment of student achievement, including students’ acquisition of the knowledge, core clinical skills (e.g., medical history-taking, physical examination), behaviors, and attitudes specified in medical education program objectives, and that ensures that all medical students achieve the same medical education program objectives.
- 9.6 Setting standards of achievement: A medical school ensures that faculty members with appropriate knowledge and expertise set standards of achievement in each required learning experience in the medical education program.
Financial Aid & Student Debt Management
The GUSOM financial aid team strives to provide the highest level of support to medical students, helping them navigate the complex world of student loans and developing personalized strategic financial plans.
Current Efforts
Enhancing financial aid resources and debt management counseling opportunities and communications for students, including:
- Increased longitudinal financial literacy programming
- Workshops and webinars presented by AAMC, Sallie Mae, and/or other financial advisors on topics such as:
- Responsible borrowing
- Paying for Medical School: Understanding Loans & Strategic Borrowing
- Understanding Debt and Budgeting Best Practices
- Credit, Fundamentals, and Introduction to Student Loan Repayment and Forgiveness Programs
- Understanding Physician Compensation and Contracts
- Critical Concepts to Understand Before Residency
- Budgeting for Medical Students and Residents
- Loan Repayment/Home Buying for Residents
- Insurance: Emphasis on Starting Your Own Practice
- Proven Strategies for Managing Student Debt/Loan Repayment
- 1:1 exit counseling
- Enhanced financial aid counseling for any student considering a leave of absence and/or delayed graduation
- Workshops and webinars presented by AAMC, Sallie Mae, and/or other financial advisors on topics such as:
- Ensuring accessibility of financial aid information through:
- Routine email communications, quarterly newsletters, walk-in office hours, and class meeting presentations
Relevant Resources
Related LCME Elements
- 12.1 Financial Aid/Debt Management Counseling/Student Educational Debt: A medical school provides its medical students with effective financial aid and debt management counseling and has mechanisms in place to minimize the impact of direct educational expenses (i.e., tuition, fees, books, supplies) on medical student indebtedness.
LCME Leadership
The LCME accreditation efforts are led by the Faculty Accreditation Lead (FAL), Mary Furlong, MD, Senior Associate Dean of Curriculum and Director of the Office of Medical Education. Administrative efforts are facilitated by Stephanie Roberts, MS, who serves as the Project Manager and Survey Visit Coordinator (SVC) for the accreditation survey.
Accreditation Timeline
Self-Study Overview
An institutional self-study is an important and required component of an LCME full accreditation survey. The general steps in the self-study process are as follows:
- Completion of the data collection instrument (DCI) and the independent student analysis (ISA), and compilation of supporting documents
- Analysis of the DCI and other information sources, including the ISA, by an institutional self-study task force based on an understanding of the intent of and expectations for LCME accreditation elements
- Creation of a self-study summary report that identifies institutional strengths, challenges related to performance in accreditation elements, and strategies to address these challenges
Self-Study Task Force
Responsibilities of the Self-Study Task Force
The self-study task force is responsible for conducting the self-study, supported by the Faculty Accreditation Lead (FAL). The task force members are charged with reviewing the DCI, the ISA report, and other information sources to create a self-study report outlining the strengths, challenges/concerns about performance related to elements, and strategies to address the identified concerns. The self-study summary report is submitted along with other documents for review by the survey team and the LCME.
Self-Study Task Force Committee Structure
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee is responsible for general oversight of the self-study process and will be composed of the subcommittee chairs and co-chairs, Faculty Accreditation Lead, Project Manager, and other key stakeholders. Following the work of the subcommittees, the steering committee will compile a final self-study report of institutional strengths and challenges/areas of concern related to performance in accreditation elements.
Operational Infrastructure & Educational Resources Subcommittee
The Operational Infrastructure & Educational Resources Subcommittee is responsible for LCME Standards 1 and 5, which include 18 elements in total with topics ranging from, but not limited to, strategic planning, conflict of interest policies, affiliation agreements, bylaws, financial and educational resources, and infrastructure/facilities.
Academic & Learning Environments Subcommittee
The Academic and Learning Environments Subcommittee is responsible for Standard 3, which includes six elements with topics ranging from, but not limited to, resident participation in medical student education, diversity/pipeline programs, anti-discrimination policy, professionalism, and student mistreatment.
Leadership, Administration, & Faculty Subcommittee
The Leadership, Administration, and Faculty Subcommittee is responsible for LCME Standards 2 and 4, which include ten elements in total with topics ranging from, but not limited to, faculty appointments, the role of the dean, sufficiency of faculty and staffing, scholarly productivity, and professional development.
Curriculum Subcommittee
The Curriculum Subcommittee is responsible for LCME Standards 6-9, which include 34 elements in total with topics ranging from, but not limited to, competencies, learning objectives, curricular design, content, management, and evaluation, clinical supervision, and assessment.
Medical Students Subcommittee
The Medical Students Subcommittee is responsible for LCME Standards 10-12, which include 23 elements in total with topics ranging from, but not limited to, medical student selection, academic support, career advising, financial aid services, and personal counseling/well-being programs.
Independent Student Analysis Committee
The Independent Student Analysis Committee is overseen by student co-chairs and responsible for conducting and analyzing an independent student opinion survey and providing an ISA report to the self-study Steering Committee. The ISA report includes the survey results and an analysis and interpretation of the responses.
Committee Membership
Please check back for our committee membership list.