By Noimot Olayiwola/Staff Reporter

Dr Al-Kuwari, Dr Al-Khal, Nyleen and ACGME-I accreditation services department associate director James Cichon during a press conference yesterday
In pursuing its ambition of becoming a centre of excellence for postgraduate medical education and a world-class teaching hospital, HMC is expected to become the first institution in the region to be accredited by the US-based Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-International (ACGME-I) by October this year.
ACGME-I is a non-governmental organisation responsible for the accreditation of international graduate medical education (GME) programmes outside the US.
Once the HMC has been accredited as an institution, then ACGME-I will start looking into its individual programme accreditation starting from next year.
HMC will apply to AGCME-I for the accreditation of its residency programme by the end of this year and hopefully by July 2013 the programme will be accredited.
HMC currently has around 600 resident doctors undergoing training in its residency programme, which started some 30 years ago.
Also, seven other priority programmes including internal medicine, paediatrics, accident and emergency medicine, family medicine, radiology, psychiatry and urology are expected to apply and be accredited soon after, while the remaining programmes will apply for accreditation in 2014.
Earlier in March, HMC and ACGME-I have signed an agreement to be considered for accreditation thus making Qatar to become the second country after Singapore, and the first country in the Middle East, to be officially considered for accreditation by the ACGME-I outside the US.
The agreement was signed in the presence of ACGME board chair DrTim Flynn and ACGME president Dr Thomas Nasca and HMC senior leaders.
The ACGME-I mandates that the highest educational and training standards for doctors be implemented at a medical centre before the accreditation is granted.
HMC has been preparing for the ACGME accreditation in collaboration with renowned partners and leaders in medical education such as Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, the University of Illinois in Chicago, Partners-Harvard system, and the University of Texas medical branch.
During this week, the ACGME-I is undertaking an initial review for HMC to identify any issues that need to be addressed before the accreditation review in October.
The ACGME-I requires that hospitals must be first accredited by the joint commission international (JCI) before they are considered for its accreditation.
“We are very proud to be the first country in the Middle East and the second country in the world to sign an agreement with the ACGME-I. This is considered as a major milestone in pathway of achieving the vision of HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser for achieving the highest standards of healthcare in Qatar,” HMC managing director Dr Hanan al-Kuwari said at a press conference yesterday.
She said that HMC has worked very hard in applying the ACGME-I standards and has dedicated significant efforts and resources for the purpose.
“We expect to obtain the institutional accreditation this October which will allow our individual residency and fellowship programmes to get accredited starting next year,” she added.
HMC Graduate Medical Education (GME) director Dr Abdullatif al-Khal, who is also the Medical Staff for Academic Affairs deputy chief, said the agreement was an important one that opened the doors for HMC to excel in postgraduate medical education and to be a highly attractive academic centre for newly graduating physicians from around the world.
“HMC approached the ACGME few years ago for this purpose and we had been preparing for this moment since, and we hope to receive the institutional accreditation before the end of 2012,” he said.
ACGME-I chief operating officer John H Nyleen said that the mission of the body was to ensure improved healthcare by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians’ education through the accreditation.
“Accreditation of residency programmes and sponsoring institutions by the ACGME-I is a voluntary peer review process of evaluation and review performed by a non-governmental agency. The goals of the process are to evaluate, improve, and publicly recognise programmes or sponsoring institutions in GME that are in substantial compliance with standards of educational quality established by the ACGME-I.”
“Accreditation was developed to benefit the public, protect the interests of residents, and improve the quality of teaching, learning, research, and professional practice,” he added.