Fort Worth’s TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine receives provisional accreditation

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education has granted the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine provisional accreditation, bringing the Fort Worth medical school one step closer to full accreditation, the school announced in a news release Tuesday.

“This is a tremendous step in solidifying the medical school’s role as a critical partner in making Fort Worth and North Texas a place where medical innovation in education and health care occurs,” said Dr. Stuart D. Flynn, the medical school’s founding dean, in the release. “We are extremely humbled and grateful that the LCME favorably assessed our training mission to graduate physicians who will deliver compassionate care and lead into the rapidly changing health care environment, despite their not being able to visit our campus in-person due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Members of the LCME voted at their meeting in mid-June to grant provisional accreditation to the medical school. A team of accreditors from the committee met virtually with senior leadership, faculty and students during a virtual site visit in February before making their decision.

Texas Christian University and the University of North Texas Health Science Center formed a unique private-public partnership to form the new medical school in July 2015. The next step in the accreditation process is full accreditation, which is expected in late 2023, according to the medical school.

The LCME awarded the school of medicine preliminary accreditation in October 2018, allowing the school to welcome its first class of 60 medical students in July 2019, the release said. The second cohort of 60 students arrived in July 2020 after the school received more than 4,000 application submissions.

Applications to the school of medicine doubled in 2021 to more than 8,000 applicants and the school will welcome its third group of 60 medical students on July 12.

H. Paul Dorman, chairman and CEO of Fort Worth-based DFB Pharmaceuticals, donated the cost of tuition for the first year of classes for the inaugural class in 2019, who are known as the Dorman Scholars, the release said. Recently, an anonymous donor couple funded tuition for the 2021-22 academic year for the entire class of 60 students who began medical school in July 2020.

“We are extremely thankful for the support from our community members in helping us build a new model of medical education in Fort Worth,” Flynn said. “Their support has given our medical students comfort in decreasing their cost to attend medical school and allows them to fully immerse themselves into their training. This is positive for our students, our community, and ultimately for the patients our graduates will serve.”

The curriculum focuses both on developing Empathetic Scholars, physicians able to “walk in a patient’s shoes with compassion,” while embracing and leading major drivers in the future of medicine, including artificial intelligence, technology monitoring patient health and disease, and genomics, medical school officials said in the release. Each student also does a four-year research thesis.

To date, 120 students have attended classes on TCU and UNTHSC campuses and participated in patient care with affiliates in Fort Worth and North Texas.

The medical students administered approximately 19,000 COVID-19 vaccines to Tarrant County residents over a 12-week span during the TCU and Baylor, Scott & White COVID-19 Drive-Through Vaccination Clinic on the TCU Campus.

In February 2020, Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center Fort Worth and the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine announced their collaboration on starting a new Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited physician resident training program. The collaboration, which will eventually train more than 150 physicians annually, will not only improve health and the delivery of care in North Texas, it will also address the ever-increasing physician shortage in Fort Worth and beyond, the school said.