Council Withdraws Accreditation of King-Drew Medical Center Diagnostic Radiology Program
Los Angeles County officials yesterday said that the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has withdrawn the accreditation of a diagnostic radiology program at Martin Luther King-Drew Medical Center, a move that may "hamper the hospital's ability to serve patients," the Los Angeles Times reports. The council found "significant deficiencies" in the program, such as inadequate supervision of residents in the emergency room. The council also found that between 1997 and 2001, only 15.4% of residents who took oral board certification examinations passed the first time that they took the exams. King-Drew plans to appeal the withdrawal of accreditation, which takes effect in June 2004, but the hospital will no longer accept new radiology residents. King-Drew officials said that their "board passage rates are improving" and that emergency room supervision problems "have been rectified," the Times reports. "We are really revamping everything. A lot of it boils down to dollars, of course," Marcelle Willock, dean of the Drew University College of Medicine, which manages medical care at King-Drew, said. The council plans to review the graduate medical education office at King-Drew in April. According to Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, an "unfavorable rating" for King-Drew in the April review could have a "significant" impact on medical education programs at the hospital. King-Drew serves patients in one of "poorest, sickest and most densely populated" areas of Los Angeles County, the Times reports.
The withdrawal of accreditation of the diagnostic radiology program at King-Drew also raises "significant questions" about the affiliation between King-Drew and the Drew University of Medicine and Science, the Times reports. According to the Times, Garthwaite may move to eliminate the affiliations between medical schools and individual hospitals and replace them with a "broader tie" between medical schools and the county health system (Ornstein/Riccardi, Los Angeles Times, 12/10).
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