Academic medical experts will visit and critique the school at the downtown Phoenix Biomedical Campus from Sunday through Wednesday.

Dr. Kenneth Ramos says the University of Arizona medical school in downtown Phoenix has taken steps to shore up diversity recruitment for students, faculty and staff. Ramos, the interim dean, overlooks the new Biomedical Sciences Partnership Building that opened Feb. 23, 2017, in downtown Phoenix.(Photo: Tom Tingle/The Republic)

The University of Arizonas medical school in downtown Phoenix thisweek will begin its final exam in a decade-long journey to full, independent accreditation.

University officials are not expecting a breezy test.

The challengecomes in the form of a team of academic medical experts who will visit and critique the school at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus. They arrivedSunday and will stay through Wednesday.

"We would be successful beyond ourwildest imaginations if they gave us full accreditation and absolutely no citations," said Dr. Leigh Neumayer, UA's interim senior vice president for health sciences.

"We do think there will be some areas that they will want to, at a minimum, monitor."

The Phoenix school opened a decade ago as a branch campus of Tucson's UA College of Medicine to help address thestate's physician shortage. UA's Phoenix school struck out on its own in 2012 when itreceived separate "preliminary" accreditation, the first of three steps to full accreditation.

But the school's attempt at mid-tier "provisional" accreditation stalled in 2015 after the accrediting body, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education,warned that changes were needed in four areasbefore advancing the school. Two of the four findings stemmed from governance issues following Banner Health's $1.2 billion merger with the UA Health Network and a 30-year affiliation with the medical school. The Phoenix school made changes, and the Liaison Committee advanced the school to provisionalaccreditation in February 2016.

That's one reason why university officials don't anticipate a rubber-stamp review on the way to full accreditation.

To prepare for the Liaison Committee's visit, the medical school earlier hosted a mock visit froma four-member team that included a former medical school dean,an associate deanand two consultants. The review team lauded the school for its accomplishments, Neumayer said, but the review team also asked why so many Phoenix medical school officials had "interim" attached to their titles.

"That's one that worries me," saidNeumayer, who was named interim senior vice president for health sciences in December after Dr. Joe "Skip" Garcia resigned from the position. The job oversees the UA medical schools in Tucson and Phoenix and three otherhealth-related schools.

The Phoenix school also has an interim dean, Dr. Kenneth Ramos, who was named to the position last year after Dr. Stuart Flynn, the longtime Phoenix dean, and most of his leadership team resigned to takepositions at a new medical school on Fort Worth, Texas. The departures prompted the Arizona Medical Association, a 4,000-member physicians organization, to seek an independent investigation by the Arizona Board of Regents.

The regents hired Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP to evaluate concerns, but after spending at least $179,653 on the work, the board determined no action was needed.

The regents have refused to make public the report, citing attorney-client privilege and work-product protections.

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A search committee identified four candidates for the dean position, but two candidates have dropped out, Neumayer said. One candidate decided she was not interested in the position, and second person chose not to pursue the position after Garcia resigned from the post.

Neumayer declined to identify the two remaining candidates. She said the timing of the new dean's hiringpartly depends on finding time to schedule a meeting with the finalists.

"The two applicants left are highly qualified,"Neumayer said. "It's a matter of me being able to meet them and what kind of (compensation) package we can put together for them."

The Liaison Committee last February also told the medical school there were three areas in which itwould continue to monitor progress: theschool's affiliation agreement with Banner Health, the sufficiency of administrative staffand program diversity.

Neumayer and Ramos said some contract language changedin the Banner Health-UA agreement to address the Liaison Committee's concerns. Those changes included appointing the deans of both the Phoenix and Tuscon medical schools to a joint Banner Health-UA academic management council.

UA and Banner Health also made it clearthat the medical school deans in Phoenix and Tucson had full authority over clinical training appointments for third- andfourth-year students at their respective campuses.

Ramos said the Phoenix school has taken steps to shore up diversity efforts in the recruitment of students, faculty and staff. For example, the medical school has launched a "pathways program" that recruits 19 students from communities such as Latinos and Native Americans that are under-represented in medicine. The idea is to prepare these students and make themmore competitive in the rigorous application process formedical schools.

The Phoenix campus also has tried tobeef up administrative staff and faculty recruiting. Last June, the Phoenix school recruitedDr. Michael Fallon, who will be paid $680,000 per yearas the first chairman of the school's department of medicine. UA pledged a five-year, $40 million package for Fallon to build the department of medicine and recruit division chiefs, according to his offer letter.

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Ramos noted that the newly opened $136 million Biomedical Science Partnership Building will provide space forthe medical school to beef up research efforts.

Despite the medical school's strides,Neumayer said, she would not be surprised if the Liaison Committee issues some type of finding. The most difficult step is achieving preliminary accreditation. All schools that have completed that first step have advanced to full accreditation, though some schools may take longer to get there.

"The point is, just because they find something significant doesn't mean you are not going to get accredited or re-accredited," she said. "Clearly you have to pay attention to the standards and the changes. I view it as a way for us to make sure our medical schools are the best they can be."

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