LCME Independent Student Analysis (ISA)

Medical students received a survey link in fall 2019 to the Independent Student Analysis (ISA), which is organized and coordinated by their peers. The ISA is part of the self-study and accreditation processes for the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME). This data is instrumental to reports sent to the LCME in preparation for the UToledo site visit in April of 2021.

Summary

The University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences was originally founded in 1964 as the Medical College of Ohio and later became the Medical University of Ohio (MUO). In 2006, the then MUO merged with the University of Toledo and became the University of Toledo College of Medicine (UTCOM). In order to retain those students who decided to come to Toledo for their medical education and to bolster the medical education program, the UTCOM began an official Affiliation with the Toledo-based health system ProMedica in 2015. This Affiliation occurred two years after the last review of the UTCOM’s medical education program by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education in 2013.

In the Fall of 2019, after months of planning, the Independent Student Analysis Committee at the UTCOM distributed the Independent Student Analysis (ISA), the basis for this report. The ISA provides an opportunity for students to objectively and independently evaluate, commend, and critique the medical education program for Accreditation by the LCME. The statements and the data collected provide a foundation on which to gauge the perspectives of the student body at our College of Medicine.

Six-hundred and fifty-four (654) of the total 701 students of the UTCOM responded and submitted the ISA that was distributed by the Committee. This represents a response rate of 93.3%. Given this high overall response rate, we believe that the assessments and data collected in this report are accurate representations of the student body's opinions.

Independent Student Analysis summary

DOWNLOAD THE FULL ISA REPORT (PDF)

Evaluation of the pre-clinical years at the UTCOM for this Accreditation cycle is unique. In the Fall of 2017, Rocket Medicine, a newly designed pre-clinical curriculum, was implemented to strengthen the medical education program. To date, the third-, second-, and first-year students are the only classes who have experienced this new curricular model. The current fourth-year students had a different curriculum, which will be referred to as the Legacy Curriculum throughout this report. The majority of the discussion concerning the pre-clerkship addresses the changes and differences in satisfaction and dissatisfaction as a consequence of this curriculum change.

Overall, the student body is satisfied with multiple components of the medical education program. Satisfaction rates were highest for the following: the adequacy of the educational spaces (such as lecture halls and small group teaching spaces) on campus and at hospital/clinical sites, access to service learning and community service opportunities, and library/related information resource services. As it pertains to the medical education program, students in the new curriculum reported high satisfaction with the clinical skill instruction in the pre-clerkship, amount of self-directed learning time, adequacy of education to diagnose disease, and the quality of the interprofessional experiences offered. The clinical students (the M3s and the M4s) likewise reported high satisfaction with many aspects of the clinical curriculum: quality of the clerkships, workload, access to patients, supervision, and adequacy of their educations to diagnose and manage disease.

The quality of the third- and fourth-year clerkships was reported highly across all the required Clerkships with an average satisfaction rate of 93.85%. The lowest rate of satisfaction was reported for Obstetrics and Gynecology (79.6%); the highest rate of satisfaction was reported for Neurology (96%).

There are several areas that require the attention of the UTCOM Administration that were reported with low satisfaction. These question items include: the responsiveness of the Office of the Associate Dean for Medical Education, the ease of access to research opportunities, the adequacy of career counseling, the adequacy of counseling pertaining to elective choices during the pre-clerkship and the clerkship, the adequacy of education in nutrition, and the helpfulness of the pre-clinical curriculum in preparing for the USMLE Exams.

While the aforementioned is an overview of the UTCOM’s Independent Student Analysis, we provide a more in-depth summary for each particular section outlined in the Table of Contents and for each respective question item. The ISA Committee has set forth recommendations (stated at the end of each section) for the Administration based off of certain College of Medicine characteristics that students perceived as dissatisfactory.

The ISA Steering Committee is eager to present the data and recommendations to the entire College of Medicine community, the College of Medicine’s LCME Task Force, the student body, and the LCME itself. We hope that the results herein provide fruitful ground for the continued development and improvement of the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences, an institution we are proud to represent.

Below, please find a summative report of the major findings and recommendations of the University of Toledo College of Medicine’s Independent Student Analysis, put together by the Independent Student Analysis Committee.

Download the full ISA Report (PDF)