Group puts Baylor College of Medicine on probation

HOUSTON -- An accrediting group cited more than a dozen administrative areas of concern in placing Baylor College of Medicine on probation, a downgrade that school officials hope will be lifted within two years.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education made the formal notification Friday. The probation is based on deficiencies involving administrative processes and procedures, not instruction, the Houston Chronicle reported.

The president of the Baylor medical complex, Dr. Paul Klotman, says Baylor is still fully accredited and improvements have already been made.

"I am disappointed with the findings because I know they don't represent Baylor or the quality education provided by our institution," Klotman wrote the campus community. He subsequently held four town hall meetings on campus about the matter.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education, formed in 1942 by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Medical Association, accredits 158 institutions in the U.S. and Canada. Under the group's timetable, Baylor could be removed from probation by February 2016.

The accrediting group's letter, provided to the newspaper by the school, says the action to put Baylor on probation was taken following a June 17 reconsideration hearing, at which the school appealed the recommendation in about 14 areas of concern.

Seven areas already have been fixed, three are in process of being updated and action plans are in development for the remaining four, he said.

The citations included inadequate documentation of the workings of certain provisions of policies, such as tenure and the impact of environmental hazards to students; a need for better policies involving admissions committee conflicts of interest, timely reporting of grades and observation of students in clinical rotations; and a need for new processes in providing midcourse feedback to students, annual formal surveys of graduates and a mechanism for faculty to contribute in decision-making.

Klotman said Baylor "didn't do a great job on our self-study, didn't provide enough of the kind of documentation you need to address each standard."