On Tuesday, December 9, 2014 the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine announced the release of a white paper Next Steps for Graduate Medical Education: Osteopathic Graduate Medical Education (OGME) and the Single Graduate Medical Education (GME) Accreditation System from the Ad Hoc Committee on GME Transition. Dr. John M. Kauffman, Dean of Campbell University’s school of medicine, was one of nine committee members who authored the paper.
The merger of the MD and DO residency accreditation bodies, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) respectively, was announced earlier this year in February.
The AACOM release Tuesday stated “[t]he Ad Hoc Committee on GME Transition was formed to provide its perspective to the ACGME’s Osteopathic Principles Committee (OPC) as they developed requirements for programs seeking osteopathic recognition under the single GME accreditation system.”
The medical school at Campbell University is well placed to be a leader during this time in graduate medical education. Campbell and the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) announced in October, Dr. Robert Hasty, Associate Dean for Postdoctoral Affairs, is a member of the ACGME’s Osteopathic Principles Committee (OPC) and several other faculty members were nominated for positions under the terms of the unification agreement. Additionally, Campbell is leading the development of graduate medical education in North Carolina. In the first 18 months after the first students matriculated, the school has created 144 graduate medical education positions and on our track to develop 450 positions with a strategic plan to have all programs transitioned over to the unified accreditation system by 2020.