SPOKANE, Wash. –Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine has received full accreditation, the final milestone in an accreditation journey that has spanned nearly six years.
The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the accrediting agency for medical degree programs in the U.S. and Canada, granted full accreditation after conducting an extensive virtual site visit in October 2020 and evaluating the College of Medicine’s progress in meeting the LCME’s rigorous standards. The LCME also identified areas where the college will need to focus on making adjustments and improvements both in the short term and long term before the next accreditation review period.
“Achieving full accreditation marks the culmination of a journey that began the day we started the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine and pursued relentlessly for the past six years to fulfill our mission to the people and communities of Washington,” said John Tomkowiak, founding dean of the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. “Thank you to our faculty, staff, students and contributors from across the state for dedicating tens of thousands of hours over many years to achieve this amazing milestone for our college.”
The WSU College of Medicine began preparing for LCME accreditation in 2015 following Gov. Jay Inslee signing into law a bill that gave WSU authority to create an independently accredited medical school. The law effectively overturned a previous law that had been in place for nearly 100 years prohibiting the creation of a new public medical school. In 2016, the LCME granted preliminary accreditation to the WSU College of Medicine, which allowed the college to begin recruiting students and accepting applications for the college’s inaugural class of 2021. The college was granted provisional accreditation in June 2019 after demonstrating continued compliance with standards and readiness for clinical components of the medical education program.
LCME accreditation is a peer-review process that determines whether a medical school’s program meets established standards and identifies opportunities for improvement. The process for full accreditation included the submission of more than 2,500 pages of required documentation and a two-day, virtual site visit with the LCME in October 2020.
All allopathic U.S. medical schools are required to be accredited by the LCME as a condition of licensure of medical graduates. LCME accreditation is also required for students to take the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) and ensures eligibility for residency programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).
To learn more about the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, visit medicine.wsu.edu.
Media Contact
- Christina VerHeul, Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, 509-368-6850, christina.verheul@wsu.edu
