Since 1867, the date of the founding of the Faculty of Medicine, both the Faculty of Medicine and the Medical Center have been providing services in the realms of medical education, training, and health care to their immediate constituencies in Lebanon and the Middle East region continuously. To date the Faculty of Medicine has graduated 4,225 physicians and there is a large postgraduate training program of over 280 residents in most of the departments. The Faculty of Medicine programs have been approved by and registered in the Education Department of the State of New York on a continual basis since 1867. In 1957 the faculty became an institutional member of the Association of American Medical Colleges. It enjoyed this status until 1988, when the new rules of the association precluded membership of institutions outside the confines of the North American continent.
The AUBMC has been accredited by the Joint Commission International (JCI) as of October 2007. Previously, the Medical Center was accredited by the US-based Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) from 1965 until 1983, when the civil war in Lebanon prevented review teams from continuing with their periodic site visits. The JCI is the international arm of the JCAHO. The National Board Examinations were administered to the faculty’s undergraduate students for credit between 1966 and 1982. The faculty was a regional center for the administration of the examinations of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates between 1959 and 1993. In addition, the faculty takes pride in having had very close links with prestigious American medical schools and centers including Columbia University from 1945 to 1955, Harvard School of Medicine from 1955 to 1965, and a formal affiliation with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine from 1965 to 1975 which was supported by the Commonwealth Fund.
Links and Affiliations
The Faculty of Medicine and the Medical Center (FM/AUBMC) have revived and established a number of links and affiliations:
- Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons for student elective exchange
(since 2002)
- University of George Washington School of Medicine in Washington, DC
(as of September 8, 2004)
- 330 Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center (FM/AUBMC) Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) (as of April 1, 2003) for an MD–PhD program that admits up to three medical students annually from AUB/FM
- Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (as of May 10, 2004) for collaboration in research, education, and the provision of medical services training University of Paris 7 Denis Diderot for cooperative cancer research (as of December 8, 2004)
- University of Poitiers (France) for cooperative neurosciences research
(as of February 3, 2006)
- St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (as of April 19, 2000)
- Laval University in Quebec, Canada
- M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (as of June 6, 2007)
- Palermo University (as of April 23, 2007) for cooperation in research and higher education
University of Montpellier (France) (as of August 3, 2007)
Accreditation
The FM/AUBMC are currently accredited by the following:
- The Middle States Commission on Higher Education
- The Joint Commission International (JCI) for hospital accreditation
- Accreditation of AUBMC by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health
- Accreditation of the School of Nursing by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE)
- Accreditation of the Nursing Services at AUBMC by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC)
- The College of American Pathologists (CAP)
Membership
The FM/AUBMC is a member of the following organizations:
- Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) - Honor Medical Society (The Faculty of Medicine is the only member of the AOA outside North America since 1958)
- The American Medical College Application Service
- The American College of Physicians/American Society of Internal Medicine
- The Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine