If you missed my announcement a couple of weeks ago, the University of Maryland School of Medicine has received full re-accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) for the maximum term of eight years. This is a significant accomplishment, as the LCME maintains a rigorous evaluation process for this prestigious accreditation. Donna Parker, MD, who led the entire Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) team in this effort, as well as the LCME Steering Committee, worked tirelessly to ensure we retain our status of maintaining the highest standards in medical education. Congratulations, again, to everyone involved in this milestone!
In the same education vein, I just attended the annual Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Conference in Atlanta with the UME team. It was a great opportunity to connect with colleagues from around the country to share ideas and learn about best practices that we can bring back to the UMSOM. There was a lot of discussion around artificial intelligence and the ways we can and should be using it in medical education. I think everyone knows I am a proponent of AI – you may have noticed my Thanksgiving message image and our Holiday Open House invite graphic were created by Kris Rifkin, Director, Design and Creative Strategy, in Microsoft Copilot, an AI chatbot with a text-to-image generator. As you know, we have an active pilot project using the DAX, AI scribing software, in our clinics.
Last week we celebrated the second anniversary of the University of Maryland Institute of Health Computing and the ribbon cutting of its building on Executive Blvd. in Montgomery County. A series of new partnerships with the IHC was announced, including the NIH, FDA, AstraZeneca, 20/20 Gene Systems, and US Pharmacopeia, to study a range of critical health care issues — from antibiotic resistance and bias in AI, to lung cancer screening and a multi-cancer early cancer detection blood test. The IHC space is home to more than 70 biomedical researchers, data scientists, and artificial intelligence/machine learning experts from the UMSOM, the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Maryland Medical System, and now also the NIH and FDA. They are centrally located in the emerging technology corridor of Montgomery County (what we have been calling the “East Coast Silicon Valley for Health Computing!”) and close to the site of where the new facility will be constructed in the coming years.
I want to welcome Joseph Forbess, MD back to the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Forbess is a leading pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon and one of the nation’s top neonatal surgeons. He will serve as our new Director of Pediatric Heart Surgery.
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