Probation lifted on University of Saskatchewan's College of Medicine

The University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine is officially off probation after working to improve standards for two years.

“This is a really good day for our college of medicine. It’s a particularly good day for our students and it’s a great day for the province of Saskatchewan,” Dr. Preston Smith, dean of the College of Medicine, said to reporters Friday.

The school was given a warning in October 2013 to improve standards in 13 different areas or face the possibility of losing accreditation.

After a visit in May 2015, the Committee on the Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS) and the American Liason Committee on Medical Education (LCME) rescinded the probation order and extended the accreditation status until March 2018.

Smith says it took a lot of hard work to address the issues over the past two years. It started with changing and expanding the leadership of the college, hiring more faculty members and recruiting more doctors to teach at the clinical level.

“Engaging more doctors in actually being able to teach at the college of medicine, and working with our other faculty in our basic sciences to actually renew our curriculum. So we’re in the second year of a major revision to our curriculum,” he said.

The school is now meeting 10 out of 13 standards that were not previously considered to be on par with other medical schools across the country in 2013.