News from AVMA COE: Accreditation status and updates to education standards

This information was sent earlier today to AVMA members who have subscribed to receive the COE Standard newsletter. To receive news and important information about the veterinary school accreditation process, overseen by the AVMA Council on Education™, subscribe to the COE Standard at AVMA.org/Newsletters.

U.S. Department of Education staff have recommended that the department renew the AVMA Council on Education’s recognition as the U.S. accrediting body for veterinary medical education. The staff analysis is one of two recommendations needed before senior Education Department officials decide whether to renew the AVMA COE™ recognition for five years. The second comes from the department’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which meets July 30-31 to make its recommendation.

Council approves changes to standards of accreditation

Meanwhile, the COE has approved revisions to its accreditation standards dealing with physical facilities and equipment, and with clinical resources. The council regularly reviews the accreditation standards to ensure that they continue to meet the needs of the profession, veterinary students, and society.

• Revisions to Standard 3, physical facilities and equipment, are intended to make the standard more inclusive of distributive teaching and training sites. This reflects the COE’s stance that core teaching sites should meet the same standards, whether on campus or off.
• Revisions to Standard 4, clinical resources, address the need for teaching and training programs to identify and establish private practice cooperators, and to monitor them regularly. This is particularly important in distributed systems. The edits to Standard 4 also cover electronic medical records. The council believes that although a given facility may not be required to maintain records electronically, students should be exposed to electronic medical records during their training. When a school has been cited for this as a deficit, it has traditionally been described in Standard 4, not Standard 9 (curriculum).

You can review all of the specific edits made to both accreditation standards in the COE Standard newsletter sent to subscribers yesterday. The revised standards are posted on the AVMA website in their entirety, as part of the full set of COE accreditation standards.

The COE also reviewed two of the other accreditation standards – Standard 5, information resources, and Standard 6, students – but determined they do not require any revisions and remain appropriate to meet the needs of the profession.

Upcoming COE events and site visits

The next meeting of the AVMA COE will take place September 22-24. It will be proceeded by a training session for COE site visitors, September 20-22. The council also has scheduled the following site visits:

Comprehensive site visits:

• Michigan State University, October 13-17
• Louisiana State University, November 3-7
• Auburn University, November 17-21
• Universite de Montréal, December 8-12

Consultative site visits:

• University of Liverpool, September 29 - October 3
• University of Cambridge, December 1-5

For more details, see the COE calendar of site visits.

Accreditation results

During its spring meeting, the COE renewed the accreditation of these schools, based on evaluation reports from comprehensive site visits:

• University of Queensland School of Veterinary Medicine
• Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
• University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine
• Royal Veterinary College University of London
• Seoul National University College of Veterinary Medicine

View details of these accreditation decisions and other notices of AVMA COE accreditation actions on the AVMA website.