July Education Cluster - Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

In the middle of the heat wave, the July education cluster meetings took place last week, both in person and virtually.

For those of you not familiar with these meetings, they generally occur in Chicago at the O'Hare Hilton.  Many people ask me "How was the weather in Chicago?"  My general response is that "I have no idea!"  Chicago is a misnomer in this case as the Hilton and the airport is connected by a tunnel and after I walk into the airport in Wilkes-Barre I don't feel the outside air until I return to Wilkes-Barre.

The Council on Osteopathic Postgraduate Training Institutions (COPTI) met by phone on Wednesday.  There was an active discussion and subsequent approval of new OPTI standards.  COPTI also discussed a new approval paradigm for OPTIs.  This would create a process much like hospitals and colleges of osteopathic medicine where fully accredited OPTIs have a five year approval.  It also includes interim monitoring rubrics on a regular basis.

The Program and Trainee Review Council (PTRC) met on Thursday.  Hospitals, OPTIs and Specialty College Evaluating committees (SPECs) collaborated on accreditation decisions on 71 OGME programs.  The PTRC also discussed the inspection protocols for Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Internal Medicine and General Surgery programs.  As of July 1, these specialties have "new" accreditation standards.  These standards are devoid of institutional standards as the future plan is to review this as part of to-be-implemented institutional review.  A hybrid approach will be used employing the specialty crosswalk and a modified institutional crosswalk.  A multi-specialty team developed this approach.

Finally, the Council on Postdoctoral Training (COPT) met on Friday and Saturday.  The bulk of this meeting encompassed approval of another round of "new" specialty Basic Standards.  SPECs and the COPT have done yoemans work over the last 12 months to re-write, edit and approve these standards.  The COPT also addressed several other policy issues involved with OGME.

It is also worth noting that all COPT actions will be available for public comment.  Those comments must then be addressed by COPT.  This includes all the specialty college standards and OPTI standards.  A programing note...the current standards on this link are from the April COPT meeting.  (UPDATE:  old standards removed July 29, 2011)

blOGME will do its best to alert the OGME community of the opportunity to comment.  The suggestion is not that everything needs changed or comment.  By the same token, we should no longer hear "How did that happen?" 

Transparency is here!

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty!  It is up to the OGME community to accept the challenge of keeping vigil.