An appointment of new members to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education board marks a key milestone in the move to accredit allopathic and osteopathic residency and fellowship programs through a single body.
The American Osteopathic Association and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine formally joined ACGME, part of a plan by AOA to stop offering accreditation to osteopathic graduate medical education programs and shift responsibility to ACGME, which unites the accreditation of all graduate medical education programs in the United States under a single system. The new board members were announced Jan. 14.
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Currently, ACGME and AOA maintain separate accreditation systems for allopathic and osteopathic educational programs. In July, AOA accredited programs will being a 5-year transition to ACGME accreditation, under which osteopathic standards will be added to ACGME standards to define osteopathic programs; MDs and DOs will be eligible for all residencies. Once the transition is complete, residency matches will be unified as well.
AOA appointees to the ACGME board include Dr. Karen Nichols, dean of Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine and Dr. David Forstein of Greenville (S.C.) Health System.
AACOM appointees include Dr. Gary Slick, medical director at the Osteopathic Medical Education Consortium of Oklahoma at Oklahoma State University, Tulsa, and Clinton Adams, professor of family medicine at Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, Pomona, Calif.
The single accreditation system will allow graduates of allopathic and osteopathic medical schools to complete their residency and/or fellowship education in ACGME programs.