UG VC confident of Medical School’s speedy reaccreditation

– preparing for November site visit

he Medical School of the University of Guyana (UG) still has a far way to go before it regains accreditation, but Vice Chancellor, Dr Ivelaw Griffith is quite confident that things will fall into place.

The Medical School has been struggling to have its programme reaccredited by the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine (CAAEM), since it was lost back in 2014.

Dr Griffith said he was positive that things would get back on track, especially after a site visit by the accreditation body in November of this year. The reaccreditation process, Dr Griffith explained, is a journey and not an event. A journey that will allow the University to meet some of the “conditionalities” that were not previously met which caused the School to lose its accreditation in the first place. “I am very confident that we have met some of those conditionalities. We are working towards improving the physical facilities. We hit a snag and we made a public notice about it, that we had an electrical fire in the Health Faculty and because of that fire, we had to relocate classrooms, faculty and administrative staff,” the Vice Chancellor outlined.

He said too that the University was moving progressively to organise and deliver better on the curriculum, which was one of the concerns of the accreditors. He said the school was working to ensure that it tightened the clinical arrangements between the University and maybe the Georgetown Public Hospital and the other clinical engagements. Part of the journey, he emphasised, is to have full-time lecturers in every area.

“So, I would say that we are well along the journey to reaccreditation. I know that we are not comfortable, I am not comfortable that we have met all those milestones, but I think we have sufficient evidence of not only institutional intent to support, but we have a plan how to get overtime,” he said.

The UG School of Medicine lost its accreditation in April 2014, and was served with provisional accreditation until 2015 by CAAEM. The Medical School was offered accreditation for the periods 2008 to 2009, 2009 to 2012 and 2014 to 2015. The medical school lost its full accreditation after a visit from the CAAEM revealed that a number of recommendations to improve the institution were not adhered to.

Dean of the Faculty of Health Science, Dr Emmanuel Cummings had told Guyana Times earlier that the School of Medicine had received some $33 million from Government through the Education Ministry, to be used to upgrade the medical laboratories, as these was among the deficiencies highlighted by the accreditation body.

As efforts continue to regain accreditation, the academic year 2016-2017 for the Medical School will see refurbished laboratories and upgraded classrooms for the students.

According to Dr Cummings, “so far as I know, the Ministry is at the stage of procuring equipment that we will definitely have in place for September and we are currently evaluating the physical facilities.”

Dr Cummings noted that all relevant documents have been submitted and the curriculum was currently being reviewed.