The Seton Hall-Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine’s application for candidacy status has been approved by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), moving the school one large step closer to gaining permission to open its doors to students in fall 2018.
“By 2020, it is estimated there will be a shortage of upward of 3,000 physicians in the Garden State and 135,000 nationally,” Dr. Mary Meehan, interim University President, said in a statement on Thursday, June 8. “The School of Medicine will provide a significant economic boost to the region, attract outstanding students to the field of medicine and help curb the physician shortage. As a Catholic university with strong programs in the sciences, nursing, health and medical sciences, and health law, we are uniquely poised to do this.”
The next step in the accreditation process for the developing medical school is a site visit this fall, during which the LCME, the medical school accrediting body, will visit the Nutley and Clifton campus, which is currently under construction.
“The site visit will be a major factor in the LCME’s decision whether we receive preliminary accreditation,” Dr. Bonita Stanton, found dean of the School of Medicine, said in an email. “Preliminary accreditation is needed to admit students.”
The new campus will also house the College of Nursing and the School of Health and Medical Sciences, both currently located on SHU’s main campus in South Orange.
Stanton said that she feels appreciative toward “hundreds of people from SHU, Hackensack-Meridian, and the community,” for reaching this step in the accreditation process. “It is an enormous process, and we have been so fortunate,” Stanton said. “It is an intense, exciting and joy-filled process.”
A date for the site visit has not yet been set.
Brianna Bernath can be reached at brianna.bernath@student.shu.edu.
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