If you are a student who wants to pursue medical education in the Caribbean, you must be wondering about the accredited of those medical schools and the admission process.

If you want to pursue a career in medicine in the USA or Canada, it is imperative that the institution you study at is accredited. That is a structural and functional requirement for one to practice medicine in the USA or Canada. The regional accreditation is also required to meet the standards and requirements of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). The LCME is an accreditation authority in the USA and Canada for medical schools which provides students with an MD (Doctor of Medicine) degree.

The Caribbean medical school accreditation process is a must; otherwise, graduates will not be able to earn a residency or take any licensure exams in the US or Canada. This means they won’t be able to practice medicine in these countries. The Caribbean medical school accreditation process answers these key questions for the LCME:

  1. Are the mission and institutional learning objects clearly established by the medical school?
  2. Can the mission and objectives of the medical school be aptly met by its resources and curriculum?
  3. Are the mission and objectives established by the medical school being met currently and are they likely to be met in the future?

Importance of Accreditation 

The most important question and prospective any student will have from a Caribbean medical school is if the school is LCME accredited or not.

AUAMED is accredited by the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and Other Health Professions (CAAM-HP), which is a recognized institution for assessing the LCME standards by the US National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA). CAAM-HP is also recognized by the international authority on medical school standards – the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME). As CAAM-HP accredits many medical schools in the Dominican Republic and the member states of the Caribbean, it is considered an LCME accreditation.

CAAM-HP conducts a comprehensive, peer-review process for providing accreditations. During this process, each and every element of a medical program is examined. Conducted by an independent body of professionals that operate autonomously, only the medical programs and schools operating at the highest industry level receive the accreditation. This is done to provide students with the assurance of high academic quality and experience in these programs and schools.

Caribbean Medical School Accreditation Process

The first step toward attaining the CAAM-HP Caribbean medical school accreditation is to send a request for the assessment by the medical school’s home country government. Following this, the school submits the required documents to the authorities. These documents contain various details such as courses offered, clinical training or clerkships, facilities, enrollment, resources, faculty information, and an institutional self-study.

After the documents are assessed, a body of professionals from the CAAM-HP arrives physically to perform relevant assessments. It determines the accreditation merits of the medical school. This is the procedure used under the LCME system.

The next step is to check whether or not the medical school meets all of the 12 LCME standards. To get the accreditation, the school must meet all of these standards, which cover various aspects – curricular content, student selection, learning environment, faculty, organization, services, support, and more.

Accredited medical schools must also provide help to the students through various channels,  such as debt management counseling, financial aid, and reasonable tuition refund policies.

After this process, Caribbean medical schools are accredited for a period of four to eight years. Once this term expires, the CAAM-HP repeats this process through a survey in order to ensure that the medical school continues to meet all the standards.

After gaining the CAAM-HP accreditation, medical schools in the Caribbean can also gain different state-level approvals. Individual states from the US or Canada can review a medical school in the same manner as LCME and CAAM-HP. These approvals can further help medical schools offer clerkships or clinical training to their students across different states within the country. 

AUAMED is accredited by the Medical Board of California, The Commission for Independent Education of the Florida Department of Education, the New York State Education Department, and The Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine.

Get Your Medical Education from an Accredited Medical School

You can gain the same privileges as the students in medical schools in the US and Canada with AUAMED. Since it has all of the required  accreditations, AUAMED can help you qualify for federal student loans via USDE and more. If you’re an AUAMED student, you can also take the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) by registering at the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG).