Correction appended

The School of Medical and Health Sciences submitted the required plan to remove its probation in late December, a spokeswoman for the school said this week.

The submission was two weeks ahead of the deadline set by the accrediting body, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, said Deborah Hudson, assistant vice president of media, marketing and communications for SMHS.

Hudson said she expects the LCME to respond in early February and follow up with a survey of the school. The reasons for probation were “curriculum management, lounge and study space for students and internal administrative processes,” according to a University news release announcing the probation in October. School officials have repeatedly refused to release the LCME report.

“They will visit just those areas that were of concern to them,” Hudson said, emphasizing, “This is not a full-scale site visit.”

Hudson admitted that the probation was unexpected.

“We were certainly surprised,” she said. “It is not something that any medical school wants.”

SMHS, which is the 11th oldest medical school in the nation, is only the fifth school to be put on probation by the LCME since 1994. Hudson said at least one of the issues had been noted by the LCME since 2001 and that other citations were a result of sloppy paperwork. The spokeswoman declined to say whether any staff had been fired for their role in the citations.

At a Faculty Senate meeting in December, SMHS Dean James Scott said the cost for a new database system for curriculum management – required by the LCME – would be expensive to create, but Hudson said she was unsure to what the final costs would be.

Hudson said the SMHS was focused on the positive outcomes stemming from the probation-required changes, including the ongoing construction at Ross Hall for expanded lounge and study space.

“This school will emerge from this stronger and better,” Hudson said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

The Hatchet erroneously reported that Deborah Hudson was the first person from the medical school to directly comment on their probation. Provost John “Skip” Williams and Dean James Scott briefly answered reporter’s questions after the Board of Trustees and Faculty Senate meetings respectively. Hudson was the first person to have a sit-down interview with The Hatchet.