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By Nancy Kinnally
February 4, 2005

 TALLAHASSEE, Fla.- The Florida State University College of Medicine was notified today that it has been granted full accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the nationally recognized accrediting authority for medical education programs leading to the M.D. degree.

Meeting in Washington, D.C., Feb. 2-3, the committee voted in favor of full accreditation after reviewing a report drafted by an ad hoc LCME survey team that visited the medical school in November.

Before full accreditation can be granted to a new medical school, LCME guidelines require such a survey be conducted when the inaugural class is in its fourth year of study. The inaugural class of the FSU College of Medicine is now its fourth year and will graduate May 21.

Accreditation means that national standards for structure, function and performance are met by a medical school's education program.

FSU’s medical school has been provisionally accredited since October 2002. Since that time, all of the rights and privileges that apply to fully accredited medical schools, their graduates and their students, have applied to the FSU College of Medicine.

The FSU College of Medicine is the first new allopathic medical school to be established in the United States in more than 20 years. The population of Florida has more than doubled since 1971, the last time an allopathic medical school opened in the state.

Based in Tallahassee, the FSU College of Medicine provides third- and fourth-year clinical education at regional medical school campuses in Orlando, Pensacola, Sarasota and Tallahassee.

The Florida Legislature created the medical school in 2000 and charged it with educating physicians to serve the state’s rural, geriatric and other medically underserved populations.