Syracuse, N.Y. -- An accrediting organization has put Upstate Medical University’s medical school on probation because of concerns over how the school is run, its curriculum and other issues.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education — LCME for short — recommended last fall that Upstate be put on probation. Officials of the SUNY academic medical center formally appealed the recommendation last week.

Earlier coverage, comments

LCME made its final decision Thursday to go ahead with the sanction.

Dr. David Duggan, interim dean of the medical school, said Friday the school remains fully accredited and is well on its way to addressing the accrediting group’s concerns.

“We obviously wish we weren’t in this position,” Duggan said. “But we are going to take very opportunity to use this as a positive experience and learn and grow from it and become a better place in the end.”

Upstate will have two years to fix problems identified by the LCME. Upstate joins five other medical schools on probation. LCME accredits 136 U.S. medical schools.

The loss of accreditation would be a death penalty for Upstate’s medical school, which would no longer be able to offer medical degrees. Duggan said the chances of that happening are “infinitesimally small.”

“I do not think they (LCME) see themselves as being in the business of putting medical schools out of business,” he said.

The San Juan Bautista School of Medicine in San Juan, Puerto Rico became the first medical school to lose its accreditation in June. Its accreditation was reinstated in November at an appeals hearing ordered by a federal court. The school remains on probation.

The LCME is the nationally recognized accrediting authority for medical education programs leading to a medical degree in U.S. and Canadian schools. The group is sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Medical Association.

Accreditation is important because it shows a medical school meets national standards. Graduating from an LCME-accredited school is a condition for a medical license in most states.

One of the LCME’s major criticisms was Upstate’s lack of a central committee with the authority to make changes in the school’s courses.

The LCME also was concerned over a cheating scandal that occurred last year involving fourth-year medical students who helped each other on online quizzes in a required medical literature course. Many students had complained about the course. In the wake of the cheating incident, Upstate suspended the course for at least one year in order to improve it.

LCME also was troubled by lack of consistency in some courses offered at Upstate’s Syracuse and Binghamton campuses.

Duggan said the sanction against Upstate was not based on any shortcomings in the quality of its medical students or their accomplishments.

The LCME has become stricter in recent years and is taking more serious actions against schools it believes are not meeting standards.

From 1996 to 2000 only three schools were recommended for probation, according to a recent report published by the American Medical Association. Between 2004 and 2009, 10 schools were recommended for probation and the number of schools facing sanctions has continued to increase since then, the report said.

Sanctions have increased since LCME clarified its standards in 2002, said Dr. Dan Hunt, LCME co-secretary. Prior to that time the standards were vague.

Once the standards were revised, survey teams started going into medical schools with a much sharper focus, he said. Many medical schools have not kept up with the revised standards, he said.

The clearer standards allow the LCME “ ... to see where there are core problems that can lead to decisions like probation,” Hunt said.

Upstate’s medical school has 640 students.

The sanction will probably not have much of an effect on Upstate, said David Petersam, president of Admissions Consultants, a Virginia company that advises students applying to medical schools.

Petersam said Upstate has a good reputation, even though it’s not considered a top tier medical school like Harvard, Johns Hopkins or Duke.

“Students are still going to apply because there are so many applicants who want to attend a U.S. medical school and don’t want to be forced to go to a Caribbean medical school where your chances of coming back and practicing are much lower,” Petersam said.

The probation issue could prompt some of the most highly qualified applicants to take Upstate off their list, he said. “But it’s not going to make a huge difference,” he added.

Upstate has alerted all prospective medical school applicants to the probation issue, Duggan said. So far it has had no effect on the number or quality of students who have applied, he said. It also has not affected faculty recruitment, he said.

When LCME recommended probation last fall, the medical schools’s dean, Dr. Steven J. Scheinman, resigned and Duggan was named interim dean.

Upstate is conducting a national search and expects to have a new dean in place later this year, Duggan said.

Letter by Upstate Medical University to medical school faculty, staff, students

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Upstate medical school put on probation because of problems with courses, administration