scholarly journals Public availability of information from WFME-recognized accreditation agencies

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kahlo Baniadam ◽  
Zakia Arfeen ◽  
Mohammed Ahmed Rashid ◽  
Ming-Jung Ho ◽  
Sean Tackett

AbstractThe World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) Recognition Programme was created to ensure the comparability of medical school accrediting agencies, so that the schools accredited by those agencies would have similar educational quality. WFME explicitly values transparency and has recognition criteria that relate to agencies making information publicly available. Our study examined 20 WFME-recognized agencies’ transparency by reviewing agency websites for 27 information elements related to accreditation standards, procedures, and processes. We contacted agencies as needed for information that we could not find on their websites. We were only able to retrieve additional information from 3 of the 12 agencies that we attempted to contact. We found that while 12 agencies had over 90% of expected information elements available, 6 agencies had less than 50%. Our findings illustrate barriers for those who wish to better understand medical school accreditation in some regions and raise questions about how comparable WFME-recognized agencies are.

2019 ◽  
Vol 105 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine D. Shiffer ◽  
John R. Boulet ◽  
Lisa L. Cover ◽  
William W. Pinsky

ABSTRACT Certification by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG®) is required for international medical graduates (IMGs) to enter U.S. graduate medical education (GME). As a gatekeeper to the U.S. health care system, ECFMG has a duty to verify that these individuals have met minimum standards for undergraduate medical education. Historically, ECFMG has focused on evaluating individual graduates, not medical schools. However, in response to the rapid growth of medical schools around the world and increasing physician migration, ECFMG decided in 2010 to institute medical school accreditation as a future requirement for ECFMG certification. More specifically, beginning in 2023, individuals applying for ECFMG certification will be required to be a student or graduate of a medical school that is accredited by an agency recognized by the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME). By requiring accreditation by an agency that has met WFME's standards, ECFMG seeks to improve the quality, consistency and transparency of undergraduate medical education worldwide. The 2023 Medical School Accreditation Requirement is intended to stimulate global accreditation efforts, increase the information publicly available about medical schools, and provide greater assurance to medical students, regulatory authorities, and the public that these future physicians will be appropriately educated.


1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 415-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Ring ◽  
David Mumford ◽  
Cornelius Katona

Recognising the vast extent of psychiatric morbidity internationally and the burden of mental illness on people, communities and nations, the World Psychiatric Association and the World Federation for Medical Education have recently published global guidelines for developing core curricula in psychiatry for medical students (Walton & Gelder 1999). More locally, major changes are taking place in undergraduate medical education throughout the UK. These changes represent a response to the appreciation, both by medical schools and by the General Medical Council (GMC), of two major pressures in undergraduate education. The first is that students have been asked over the years to accumulate more and more factual knowledge while the knowledge base in medicine itself expands and changes more rapidly. The second is that both understanding of illness and delivery of care are developing an increasing focus on the role of the community and community support. These general pressures have led to a number of specific recommendations, initially put forward by the GMC in their document Tomorrow's Doctors (GMC, 1993). This document encourages the reduction of ‘core knowledge’ taught to medical students to 65% of what has previously been taught, together with the identification of special study modules (SSMs), which would fill the remaining time in the curriculum. These SSMs would allow students to explore areas of particular interest in greater depth than was previously possible.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Weisz ◽  
Beata Nannestad

Abstract Background This article presents a history of efforts by the World Health Organization and its most important ally, the World Federation for Medical Education, to strengthen and standardize international medical education. This aspect of WHO activity has been largely ignored in recent historical and sociological work on that organization and on global health generally. Methods Historical textual analysis is applied to the digitalized archives and publications of the World Health Organization and the World Federation for Medical Education, as well as to publications in the periodic literature commenting on the standardization of international medical training and the problems associated with it. Results Efforts to reform medical training occurred during three distinct chronological periods: the 1950s and 1960s characterized by efforts to disseminate western scientific norms; the 1970s and 1980s dominated by efforts to align medical training with the WHO’s Primary Healthcare Policy; and from the late 1980s to the present, the campaign to impose global standards and institutional accreditation on medical schools worldwide. A growing number of publications in the periodic literature comment on the standardization of international medical training and the problems associated with it, notably the difficulty of reconciling global standards with local needs and of demonstrating the effects of curricular change.


MedEdPublish ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Cury ◽  
Felipe Colombelli Pacca ◽  
Sandrine da Silva Miranda ◽  
Andreia Etsuko Ishii ◽  
Norma Barbosa Novaes Marques ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 96 (8) ◽  
pp. 267-267
Author(s):  
Peter Lamont ◽  
Anna Yerokhina

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) have a strategic partnership for the promotion of accreditation in medical education around the world. They have developed accreditation guidelines, which recommend establishing accreditation that is effective, independent, transparent and based on criteria specific to medical education. So far, only a minority of countries have quality assurance systems based on external evaluation and the majority use only general criteria when approving or evaluating an educational activity.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Atia

UNSTRUCTURED Dear Editor, we would like to share the Libyan’s experiences in the accreditation of medical education. We shall first describe in brief the education system in Libya before talking about the process and challenges in accreditation of medical education. Next, we shall clarify the role of the National Center for Quality Assurance and Accreditation (NCQAA) in supporting medical faculties to adopt the criteria of the world federation of medical education (WFME).


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