AMC Accreditation Update In January 2012 The Australian Medical Council has recently completed a follow-up assessment of the MBBS course of the University of Notre Dame Australia School of Medicine, Sydney. The four-year MBBS course of the University of Notre Dame Australia, School of Medicine Sydney was first accredited by the AMC in 2007. The course commenced in 2008 with the first cohort graduating in 2011. In the first two years, students concentrate on the biomedical sciences and are based at the School’s Darlinghurst campus and the University of Technology Sydney. In the final two years, students complete their clinical experience in health services across the Sydney Clinical School, the Melbourne Clinical School and the Rural Clinical School, with campuses in Lithgow, Wagga Wagga and Ballarat. The AMC initially accredited the course until 2013, subject to conditions. Follow-up visits in 2009 and 2010 led to the AMC reducing the course’s accreditation from December 2013 to December 2011 and imposing a number of conditions on the accreditation. An AMC Team visited the School in May 2011 to review the School’s progress against conditions relating to the following accreditation standards: governance and staffing, curriculum, student support, and educational and clinical teaching resources. The report on this assessment and later reports by the School led the AMC in November 2011 to return the accreditation of the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery course of the School of Medicine Sydney, University of Notre Dame Australia to 31 December 2013 with conditions. The School was found to have made significant progress in addressing areas of concern, which included leadership, governance, staffing, curriculum, and implementation of the course, and the AMC found that the course substantially meets the accreditation standards. It is expected that the School will focus on the review and evaluation necessary to progress the curriculum, and on further developing its medical education expertise. The Executive Summary of the 2011 AMC accreditation report is available here. The AMC will continue to monitor the progress of the School through its annual reporting process. The AMC presents accreditation decisions and reports noted above to the Medical Board of Australia to make a decision on the approval of the programs of study for registration purposes. The Medical Board of Australia details its decisions about accredited programs of study in communiqués published on its website following each meeting.
