LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans has been awarded designation by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) as a Level 1 Comprehensive Education Institute. This is the highest level of the ACS Accredited Education Institutes. There are only 18 in the United States. The only one in its part of the country, LSUHSC’s Level 1 Accredited Education Institute will serve the entire region.
The vision of the ACS Accredited Education Institutes is to create a network of ACS-approved regional Education Institutes that offer practicing surgeons, surgical residents, medical students, and members of the surgical team a spectrum of educational opportunities including those that address acquisition and maintenance of skills; and focus on new procedures and emerging technologies.
Level 1 institutes are Comprehensive Education Institutes, with more rigorous requirements for accreditation. Level 1 criteria include providing education to at least three different groups of professionals in addition to surgeons which could be other physicians, medical residents, medical students, allied health professionals, nurses and others. The effectiveness of the curricula must be demonstrated by long term follow-up, research, curriculum validation, expansion of practice and the introduction of new skills. Level 1 institutes offer collaboration with other institutes, remediation of practice, and interdisciplinary team training. Ongoing training/education incorporates procedural as well as cognitive skills. Space requirements include the capacity for skills simulators and the accommodation of teleconferencing and teleproctoring. Technology training equipment can include Virtual Reality simulators, Laparoscopy Cholecystectomy simulators, anesthesia simulators, GI endoscopy simulators, video trainers and more.
“This national designation provides more evidence of the excellence of our educational enterprise,” notes Larry Hollier, MD, Chancellor of LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans and Dean of its School of Medicine. “A resource for members of the health care team at all stages of their careers, the LSUHSC Level 1 Accredited Comprehensive Education Institute will improve patient safety and health outcomes.”
According to the American College of Surgeons, the goal of the ACS Accredited Education Institutes is to focus on competencies and to specifically address the teaching, learning, and assessment of technical skills using state-of-the-art educational methods and cutting-edge technology. All phases of learning (prior to a course, during a course, and after a course) are addressed by the faculty at the Education Institutes. Leading-edge educational approaches will be used to ensure achievement of competence and development of expertise. The Education Institutes may use a variety of methods to achieve specific educational outcomes, including the use of bench models, simulations, simulators, and virtual reality. The faculty at these institutes will ensure that the participants achieve predetermined levels of skill at the completion of the course. Opportunities for post-course proctoring will be explored, to facilitate transfer of the newly acquired skill to surgical practice. Also, collaborative education research would be pursued by the Education Institutes under the aegis of the College, to advance the science of acquisition and maintenance of surgical competence.
“We are honored to join a group of stellar institutions with this designation,” said Dr. Charles Hilton, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans’ School of Medicine and Director of the Isidore Cohn, Jr., MD Learning Center. “This will help us offer cutting edge educational programs to trainees, practicing physicians and visiting physicians while being part of the national network of educational institutes that will help us grow and develop. Since New Orleans already is a Continuing Medical Education (CME) destination, we hope our institute offers an additional reason for associations and groups to bring CME to New Orleans. This designation also helps us advance the concept of CME and medical education research as an additional area of excellence in the quest to make New Orleans a leader in the biomedical field.”
“As one of only eighteen Comprehensive Education Institutes in the country, we are honored to have received ACS accreditation. We feel that this designation has cemented the Learning Center's status as the leader in medical education for undergraduates, graduates, and professionals in the region,” said Dr. John Paige, Director of Applied Surgical Simulation at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans’ School of Medicine.