The University of Houston has received the green light to move forward with its recruiting and enrolling its first class of 30 medical students for the first new medical school in Houston in over 50 years.
The University of Houston College of Medicine has received its preliminary accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the authority on medical education in the United States and Canada that is sponsored by the American Medical Association and the American Association of Medical Colleges.
This accreditation means the school can begin enrolling its inaugural class of 30 students and begin classes on July 20. Each of these new students will receive a $100,000 four-year scholarship thanks to an anonymous donor.
"Today is a historic day for the University of Houston, city of Houston, and the state of Texas because we are building this dream together," says Renu Khator, president and chancellor of the university, in a news release. "By training the next generation of compassionate physicians who understand how to provide quality health care at a reasonable cost, we are expanding our capabilities to serve the people and neighborhoods too often left behind."
Khator announced her plans to create the new school in 2014, with the goal being to address the shortage of 4,800-plus primary care physicians in Texas, according to the release.
For now, the school will operate out of UH's Health 2 Building, but the university plans to break ground this summer a new $80 million College of Medicine building. Completion is expected in 2022.
The school will focus its curriculum on primary care, behavioral and mental health, and preventive care, per the release, and create a household-centered care program that involves connecting a student with a family in an underserved community. According to the release, UH med students will be required to spend four weeks in a clinic in a rural part of the state.
"At full staffing we will have 65 full-time faculty teaching on campus, but there will be also be a large number of community-based faculty teaching in the outpatient and inpatient clinical settings," says Dr. Stephen Spann, founding dean of the medical school, in the release. "It is imperative that we place our medical students and faculty directly in the communities with the most need."
The school will still need fill accreditation from LCME, and, according to the release, this level of approval is usually granted within the fourth year of operation as long as the school meets the standards set by the organization.
"We are extremely grateful to receive LCME accreditation, but now the real work begins because we want to be accountable for improving the overall health and health care of the region," Spann says in the release.
