While UNLV’s new medical school seeks to find the money to build the new school, the University of Nevada, Reno’s medical school recently earned full accreditation.
Accreditation is the end of a long process, and besides being an honor, it gives the school the right to seek federal funding and allows more options for students applying for a residency.
UNR Medical School Dean Dr. Thomas Schwenk said while it used to be that accreditation came around every eight years it is now a continuous process that is the gold standard for how a school is assessed.
The school must turn over hundreds of pages of documents and go through a rigorous three-day visit by members of the Liason Committee on Medical Education. The committee is appointed by the Department of Education to oversee medical schools.
"They are pretty hard on medical schools sometimes," Schwenk said, "It is a really intense, really demanding process but then it should be, we're training tomorrow's doctors."
To make the process even more difficult, the school was working on all the reports and documents it needed to turn it while it was transitioning from having faculty, staff, students and classes in Southern Nevada to a strictly Northern Nevada venture.
UNR's Medical School will turn 50 next year and Schwenk said they are already planning the year-long celebration of the school's 50th year.
Thomas Schwenk, Dean, UNR Medical School
