LCME Strategic Visioning

At its June 2024 meeting, the LCME engaged in a mini-retreat that launched a multi-year strategic visioning initiative aimed at ensuring that accreditation standards and elements are current and effective in the context of the changing medical education environment.

At the November 2024 AAMC Learn Serve Lead meeting in a session entitled, “Identifying and Addressing Headwinds in the Decade Ahead: The LCME Strategic Visioning Process for Its Standards and Your Role in It,” the LCME Secretariat presented an overview of the initiative and facilitated an interactive exchange among session participants. To view the presentation slides and read more about the process, click here.

Updates to LCME Strategic Visioning

Updates on the status of the project, including information on how constituent input has been considered and utilized by the LCME, are highlighted below and organized by date (newest to oldest).

July 30, 2025 Announcement of COD and MESL LCME Advisory Group Members and Facilitators

• Through the selection process described below (May 6, 2025 letters from LCME leadership), the following individuals were selected for membership on the first two advisory groups. Neither the LCME nor the Secretariat had input into the selection process; the LCME leadership and Secretariat did identify appropriate facilitators (former LCME members who have served as deans or senior leaders in medical education), who will lead the sessions during which input into and feedback on the LCME’s approach to meeting the identified challenges, as well as comments related to LCME processes, will be sought in a forum that encourages both collaborative thinking and free expression of individual ideas and perspectives.

Member Lists:

• Council of Deans LCME Advisory Group
• MESL Advisory Group

June 2025 LCME Meeting

• The LCME completed its approval of all changes related to Challenge #1: Financing medical school/health care and organizational models of medical education/interaction of health systems and medical education programs. In addition, the LCME endorsed the approach to obtaining input into and feedback from the deans and MESLs as well as the Secretariat’s suggestion that a similar approach to engage colleagues from other councils or affinity groups – including those focused on academic health care systems; student affairs and admissions; inclusive excellence; faculty; educational affairs; business affairs and institutional planning; resident affairs; and former student members of the LCME – in advisory groups with structures and purposes aligned with those described in the May 6, 2025 narrative (below). These groups will be formed after the COD and MESL groups have begun their activities.

May 6, 2025 Letters from LCME Leadership

• The LCME Chair (James Graham, MD) and LCME Chair-Elect (Brad Britigan, MD) sent letters to the leaders of the AAMC Council of Deans (COD) Administrative Board (Charles Mouton, MD, MS, MBA and Allison Brashear, MD, MBA) and of the Medical Education Senior Leaders (MESL) group (Loretta Jackson, MD, PhD and Abbas Hyderi, MD, MPH) inviting them to select 10-15 members of each group to participate in two ad hoc advisory groups for the LCME Strategic Visioning initiative. The purpose of/charge to these groups is to provide input into and feedback on various accreditation standards and elements as well as potential revisions to LCME processes.
• The membership of the group intentionally will include individuals with different experiences related to the current medical education system (e.g., from public and private medical schools; university/academic health center-based and community-based medical schools; long-established and relatively new medical schools; and schools with a variety of curriculum models and organizational structures, such as regional campuses) and with a breadth of perspectives about accreditation (e.g., those with direct experience who have been supportive of LCME standards and processes and those who have expressed concerns about the LCME accreditation process).

March 27, 2025 Medical Education Senior Leaders (MESL) Community Call

• The LCME Co-Secretaries briefly discussed the rationale for the LCME’s elimination of Element 3.3 (related to Challenge #6: Political interference with accreditation and the practice of medicine). Since the main topic of the call was the potential effect of changes in the Department of Education on the federal funds available to medical students, other challenges of particular interest to this group (i.e., Challenge #2: Impact of technology (AI) on medical education, assessment, and healthcare delivery; Challenge #3: Competition for clinical clerkship sites and residency positions; Challenge #4: Emerging curriculum content expectations and curriculum management; Challenge #5: UME/GME continuum and competency-based education) were not addressed at this time. Further work on these challenges will be on the LCME’s agenda over the next year and, as described below for the COD, will occur with input and comment from MESL community members throughout the process.

March 10, 2025 Council of Deans Meeting

• The LCME Co-Secretaries presented the LCME strategic visioning framework and introduced three specific challenges of particular interest to the deans: Challenge #1 (above); Challenge #3: Competition for clinical clerkship sites and residency positions; and Challenge #6: Political interference with accreditation and the practice of medicine. Further work on these challenges will be on the LCME’s agenda for the remainder of this calendar year, with input and comment from COD members throughout the process.

February 2025 LCME Meeting

• The LCME reviewed and discussed all the comments received from session participants during the November 2024 Learn Serve Lead session and from others throughout the two-month online comment period that followed. The comments received were aligned with the ten challenges identified by the LCME in June 2024; no additional challenges were identified.
• The LCME discussed Challenge #1: Financing medical school/health care and organizational models of medical education/interaction of health systems and medical education programs. The discussion was framed around review of modifications proposed by the LCME Planning Subcommittee and mapped by the Secretariat to specific elements and DCI items associated with Standards 2, 4, 5, and 9. Those changes that were approved by the LCME to “move forward” are being incorporated into an evolving DCI, which is the scaffolding upon which the results of the entire strategic visioning process will be consolidated in an ongoing fashion. This process will be applied to each challenge until all recommended changes have been discussed and, if approved to move forward, incorporated in this evolving DCI. At this point, Stage 1 (see presentation slides) of this multi-stage process will be complete.
• The LCME discussed and approved changes proposed by the LCME Standards Subcommittee to the organizational structure of Standards 6 and 7 and some of their associated elements. These changes incorporate input obtained from the Medical Education Senior Leaders (MESL) group last year. As was done for the proposed changes related to Challenge #1, DCI modifications will be developed to correspond to the proposed changes to the Standard 6 and 7 elements and, after consideration by the LCME, be incorporated into the evolving DCI.