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LCME Accreditation Standards for Medical Students/Schools

The PWSAT-S aligns with the following standards of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME):

IS-14-A Medical schools should make available sufficient opportunities for medical students to participate in service-learning activities, and should encourage and support student participation.

“Service-learning” is defined as a structured learning experience that combines community service with preparation and reflection.  Students engaged in service-learning provide community service in response to community-identified concerns and learn about the context in which service is provided, the connection between their service and their academic coursework, and their roles as citizens and professionals.

IS-16 Each medical school must have policies and practices to achieve appropriate diversity among its students, faculty, staff, and other members of its academic community, and must engage in ongoing, systematic, and focused efforts to attract and retain students, faculty, staff, and others from demographically diverse backgrounds. 

The LCME and CACMS believe that aspiring future physicians will be best prepared for medical practice in a diverse society if they learn in an environment characterized by, and supportive of, diversity and inclusion.  Such an environment will facilitate physician training in:

• Basic principles of culturally competent health care.
• Recognition of health care disparities and the development of solutions to such burdens.
• The importance of meeting the health care needs of medically underserved populations.
• The development of core professional attributes, such as altruism and social accountability, needed to provide effective care in a multidimensional diverse society.

Each school should articulate its expectations regarding diversity across its academic community in the context of local and national responsibilities, and regularly assess how well such expectations are being achieved.  Schools should consider in their planning elements of diversity including, but not limited to: gender, racial, cultural, and economic.  Schools should establish focused, significant, and sustained programs to recruit and retain suitably diverse students, faculty members, staff, and others.

ED-7 It must include current concepts in the basic and clinical sciences, including therapy and technology, changes in the understanding of disease, and the effect of social needs and demands on care.

ED-10 The curriculum must include behavioral and socioeconomic subjects, in addition to basic science and clinical disciplines.

Lists of subjects widely recognized as important components of the general professional education of a physician are included in the medical education database completed in preparation for full accreditation surveys, and in the LCME Part II Annual Medical School Questionnaire. Depth of coverage of the individual topics will depend on the school's educational goals and objectives.

ED-19 There must be specific instruction in communication skills as they relate to physician responsibilities, including communication with patients, families, colleagues, and other health professionals.

ED-20 The curriculum must prepare students for their role in addressing the medical consequences of common societal problems, for example, providing instructions in the diagnosis, prevention, appropriate reporting, and treatment of violence and abuse.

ED-21 The faculty and students must demonstrate an understanding of the manner in which people of diverse cultures and belief systems perceive health and illness and respond to various symptoms, disease, and treatments.

All instruction should stress the need for students to be concerned with the total medical needs of their patients and the effects that social and cultural circumstances have on their health. To demonstrate compliance with this standard, schools should be able to document objectives relating to the development of skills in cultural competence, indicate where in the curriculum students are exposed to such material, and demonstrate the extent to which the objectives are being achieved.

ED-22 Medical students must learn to recognize and appropriately address gender and cultural biases in themselves and others, and in the process of health care delivery.

The objectives for clinical instruction should include student understanding of demographic influences on health care quality and effectiveness, such as racial and ethnic disparities in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. The objectives should also address the need for self-awareness among students regarding any personal biases in their approach to health care delivery.

ED-23 A medical school must teach medical ethics and human values, and require its students to exhibit scrupulous ethical principles in caring for patients, and in relating to patients' families and to others involved in patient care.

Each school should assure that students receive instruction in appropriate medical ethics, human values, and communication skills before engaging in patient care activities. As students take on increasingly more active roles in patient care during their progression through the curriculum, adherence to ethical principles should be observed and evaluated, and reinforced through formal instructional efforts.

ED-26 The medical schools faculty must establish a system for the evaluation of student achievement throughout medical school that employs a variety of measures of knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes.

Evaluation of student performance should measure not only retention of factual knowledge, but also development of the skills, behaviors, and attitudes needed in subsequent medical training and practice, and the ability to use data appropriately for solving problems commonly encountered in medical practice.

Schools are urged to develop a system of evaluation that fosters self-initiated learning by students. The system of evaluation, including the format and frequency of examinations, should support the goals, objectives, processes, and expected outcomes of the curriculum.

Extracted from: Liaison Committee on Medical Education. Functions and Structure of a Medical School: Standards for Accreditation of Medical Education Programs Leading to the M.D. Degree. (June 2008)