Dean Prothrow-Stith Highlights the Friday Noon Lectures with a 4-Year Medical School Update
As part of a Friday Noon Lecture series in late January, Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith presented a thorough overview of progress on the 4-Year medical school project via Zoom. She effectively presented a compelling four-plus years of planning overview and project successes to 80 attendees within 35-minutes.
In that time, she covered the most important information connected with the project and deftly anticipated many of the questions that attendees might pose. She dissected the process and presented through the lens of the professional to whom is vested the ultimate responsibility for project execution. The audience left the lecture with comfort that the project is on track and what roles they might play now and in the future.
She began by answering the basic question of Why CDU / Why Now? by describing the local need for such an institution. She noted that metropolitan Boston, a city of 760,000 residents where she previously spent 42 years as a student, faculty member, administrator, and government official, housed three medical schools – Harvard, Tufts and UMass. Whereas south Los Angeles, an area of approximately 1.3 million, currently has a grand total of zero medical schools.
CDU has committed to serving local residents in a big way. Creation of such a school was initially a promise to the community coming out of the 1965 Watts rebellion and to date has been a work in progress. Under President David Carlisle, the effort has taken on a momentum that is remarkable for its broad-based support. Dean Prothrow-Stith cited the economic impact as critical in creating opportunities to build a more affluent area through increased financial stability brought on by such a project.
Dr. Carlisle has committed a variety of crucial resources to steering the project. A sizable amount of financial wherewithal, a savvy leadership team, diverse human capital, and an extensive communication effort has been committed to the work. That the University is now highly ranked nationally in a variety of areas adds impetus.
The elements of intellectual bench strength and vision are in place. The University’ s response to the pandemic further heightened LA County and other institutions’ awareness of how to conduct local outreach. Through its invention and application of the CDU Advantage, utilization of community faculty working hand-in-hand with CDU’ s licensed medical professionals; health policy initiatives sponsored by the Urban Health Institute, and frequent town halls and forums led by Dr. Carlisle himself, CDU has enjoyed a unique relationship with the community that it serves.
The Dean noted a similar trajectory with the successful creation of the UC Riverside medical school. When UCR graduated its first graduating class, it was awarded full accreditation through the LCME. Also critical to the application process is the demonstrated strong support of the CDU Board of Trustees.
The Data Collection Instrument and institutional selfstudy were submitted for review in July 2021 and hastened the University’ s quest for a change of status from applicant to candidate. When submitted, the DCI weighed in at 250 pages, the self-study at 40 with twelve appendices.
There were twelve LCME standards to be answered, and 96 elements in the CDU submission. Dean Prothrow-Stith cited highlighted the importance of a few elements for the audience as exemplar of what the
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 12