Earlier this year, the Katz School of Medicine began the self-study phase of the LCME reaccreditation process. This critical initiative is led by Gerald Sterling, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Education and Data Science, Thomas Kupp, Senior Advisor to the Dean and Ken Lee, Executive Director of Educational Affairs Administration. Together, they guide the Katz LCME task force, a multidisciplinary team composed of individuals from across the school, who reviewed all the LCME Accreditation Standards. The standards are organized into the following focus areas:

• Educational Programs: Standards 6-9
• Educational Resources: Standard 5
• Institutional Setting/Faculty: Standards 1, 2, 4
• Medical Student Support: Standards 3, 10-12

What’s Involved in the Reaccreditation Process?

The reaccreditation process requires a thorough self-study and completion of the Data Collection Instrument (DCI), followed by a site visit from an LCME survey team. The survey team’s findings will highlight areas of concern, including those needing additional monitoring or support. Based on this report, the LCME committee will determine the school’s accreditation status.

Key Components of the DCI Include:

• Executive Summary of the Self-Study
• DCI Narratives and Supporting Documentation
• Independent Student Analysis (ISA)
• Appendices

Where We Are Now in the LCME Reaccreditation Process

The  second draft of the DCI is currently being finalized. With guidance from external consultants and practice surveys, we are diligently preparing for the official site visit in April 2025. Ensuring full compliance with LCME standards remains a top priority, and we are committed to addressing student feedback and enhancing the educational experience.

The LCME reaccreditation process is a valuable opportunity for reflection, growth, and improvement. It allows us to ensure we deliver the highest quality education to our students while meeting the rigorous standards set by the LCME. We are grateful for the contributions of everyone involved and look forward to successfully completing this reaccreditation journey together.

Important Dates

• Data Collection Instrument (DCI) & Self-Study Report Due: December 2024
• LCME Reaccreditation Site Visit: April 6-9, 2025
• Site Visitors initial Exit Summary Report: late April, 2025
• LCME Accreditation Status Notification: Expected in October 2025

 

Stay tuned for more updates as we progress through this important reaccreditation process.

Work is well underway to implement the Lewis Katz School of Medicine’s ambitious new strategic plan, Inspiring Excellence: 2024-2029. The plan is the result of a year of collaboration and inclusive engagement of the entire Katz community, including faculty, staff, and students, alongside Temple University, Temple Health and school advisory and alumni boards, as well its external communities. Developed in alignment with strategic priorities for both Temple University and Temple University Health System, Inspiring Excellence is driven by a vision of a big and bold future that harnesses the unlimited potential and passion deeply embedded within the community and honors a long history of valuing and embracing diversity and health equity.

“This plan charts Katz’s future, keeping us on the cutting-edge of education, discovery, and clinical care while building new practices and platforms to enrich and enhance our work,” said Amy J. Goldberg, MD, FACS, the Marjorie Joy Katz Dean. “The time, talent and passion that went into its development is really apparent, and I am excited for what lies ahead.”

Mission and Vision

Katz’s mission and vision statements, crafted collaboratively with input from over 150 individuals across the school community, emphasize its core tenets of responsiveness, inclusion, innovation, excellence, and commitment to social change in all mission areas. These inspirational statements were formulated to represent the Katz community, articulate key beliefs about the future and will serve as directional statements for the organization’s journey forward.

Mission: Align with our diverse communities to advance medicine and improve health through education, research, training, and development of the next generation of clinicians, educators, and scientists.

Vision: The Lewis Katz School of Medicine will inspire a new standard of excellence in education and research and lead social change in medicine.

“Our new mission and vision form the foundation of the school’s strategic direction,” said Dean Goldberg. “My leadership meetings now lead off with these statements, and not Kyle Schwarber… a reminder of why we do what we do, and how we need to think big and bold. I encourage all our leaders within the school to do the same.”

Continuing to Move the Needle

Since the development phase of the strategic plan began over a year ago, the school has made meaningful progress against our strategic goals, and with the launch of Inspiring Excellence and its implementation, that momentum has a roadmap.

Guided by the plan’s goals, its strategic initiatives are the actionable projects and programs that will be implemented in phases, with completion by 2029. Vetted by the Katz community during the strategic planning retreat in January, the initiatives provide clear guidance while fostering creativity and innovative thinking in their execution.

Led by Dean Goldberg and comprised of senior leaders across Katz faculty and staff, the plan’s steering committee is overseeing the implementation, in close collaboration with individual workgroups supporting each strategic initiative:

• New Regional Medical Campus: Establish a new regional medical campus with a clinical partner, which will open doors to new geographies and partnerships beyond education.
• Programs That Attract and Support Diverse Students: Enhance program offerings to attract and support diverse students by expanding outreach, creating cost-effective pathways for medical education, and increasing scholarship opportunities to alleviate student debt burdens.
• Education Innovation Hub: Create a hub focused on testing, scaling, and adopting effective innovations through pilot projects and exploring diverse uses of technology in education. This hub will prepare faculty, staff, and students to interact with emerging technologies.
• Dynamic and Collaborative Research Environment: Foster a dynamic and collaborative research environment through enhanced collaboration, communication, and resource access, driving impactful advancements across disciplines.
• Redesign of the Faculty and Staff Journeys: Redesign faculty and staff journeys to align with strategic goals, fostering professional development, career advancement, and a sense of community through interdisciplinary engagement and mentorship initiatives.
• Temple Connects: Increase community engagement and foster a sense of belonging, utilizing technology-supported approaches to improve satisfaction, connection, resilience, and responsiveness.
• Safety, Health, and Wellness: Improve safety, health, and wellness by integrating these values into Katz’s culture, policies, and operations.

Representing a comprehensive cross section of departments, roles and responsibilities across the school, workgroups began meeting earlier this summer to refine the tactics within each initiative and begin developing implementation plans that will inform and help guide the work in each area over the next five years. Once the plans are developed, workgroups will convene and support teams across the school for tactical execution. Each workgroup is led by two group champions tasked with managing the group’s work, providing feedback, and reporting back to the steering committee.

Exploring the Plan

Inspiring Excellence is a dynamic plan built to guide the future while adapting and flexing to meet the needs of our school and communities in real time. The Inspiring Excellence hub on the Katz portal has been designed the same way.

The hub’s homepage features high-level information about the plan’s elements and oversight, and each strategic initiative is housed within its own sub-section. As plans are developed and updates are made, these sections will grow accordingly. The Inspiring Excellence hub is publicly accessible, so all members of the Katz community, including alumni, friends and prospective students and faculty can engage with the plan and its components.

 

“I’m so grateful for this opportunity to connect with one another, to be inspired and energized as we move into a new year, and to provide space and time to collectively imagine and design the future of the Lewis Katz School of Medicine.”  

Amy J. Goldberg, MD, FACS, the Marjorie Joy Katz Dean of the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, shared that greeting to a gathering of nearly 200 members of the Katz, Temple Health and North Philadelphia communities as she opened the strategic planning retreat on Tuesday, January 9. The retreat offered participants the opportunity to dive into the strategic direction and provide feedback on their key areas of interest through in-depth discussion groups. Thanks to their participation and the dedicated time and efforts of all participants in the strategic planning process to date – from discovery to direction – the school is nearing completion of this initiative that will help direct and shape our future in the years to come. Once the plan is finalized, the community begins the exciting work of collectively moving towards our goals, with regular reviews to track progress. A community survey collecting feedback on the plan will remain open through early February. 

Check out the Strategic Planning site
 

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The Lewis Katz School of Medicine is charting the course for the future, nearing completion of a strategic plan for the next five years and beyond that will refine the school’s mission and vision and set priorities and goals for this exciting chapter of our school’s history.  

As the school prepares for LCME accreditation in 2025, the planning process – and the plan itself – will, where and when appropriate, align with the University's overarching strategic plan ‘Flying Further,' released in October 2022, the 2022-2025 TUHS three-year plan, and external trends influencing and evolving the educational landscape. It will also provide mechanisms for measuring our progress and success. The plan’s development also aligns with several other key initiatives, including brand development that is nearing completion for both the School of Medicine and the health system. Under the direction of Dr. Amy J. Goldberg, MD, FACS, the Marjorie Joy Katz Dean, and in partnership with the nation’s leading healthcare consulting firm ECG Management Consultants, a dedicated executive work group of leaders from across Temple’s academic medical center, including Temple Faculty Physicians, is steering the initiative. 

Rooted in collaboration and inclusive engagement with the entire Katz community, including faculty, staff and students, alongside engagement from the North Philadelphia community, the strategic planning process uses a phased approach spread across seven months. After kicking off over the summer with interviews and discovery that included in-depth data analysis and an environmental scan of peer and aspirational schools, the process is now in Phase 2. Informed by the discovery, four distinct workgroups are now developing recommendations for potential goals, strategies, initiatives and measurable outcomes. The workgroups—Infrastructure and Financial Stability; Research and Clinical Science; People, Community, and Culture; and Education—are chaired by leaders from the executive work group, and their members encompass a diverse representation of faculty, staff and administrative personnel from across the school and Temple Health. 

Workgroup Focus Areas 

The workgroups’ areas of focus include, but are not limited to, the following: 

Infrastructure and Financial Stability: Sources and uses of funds; Inter- and intra-entity financial transfers; Institutional advancement and philanthropy; Data analytics and reporting capabilities; Departmental, center, and unit structures; Administrative and academic support; and Capital projects and planning. 

People, Community, and Culture: DEI; Faculty and staff recruitment and retention; Professional advancement; Community engagement; and Safety and security. 

Research and Clinical Science: LKSOM basic science and clinical research infrastructure; Key internal strengths and differentiation areas; LKSOM and TUHS clinical research focus areas, along with complementary and synergistic clinical and community focus areas; Partnership opportunities (academic, community, industry, commercialization, tech transfer, and innovation); Physician scientist recruitment; and Student research opportunities and engagement. 

Education: Program offerings; Collaboration with other TU schools and programs; Student recruitment and enrollment; Affordability and student debt; LKSOM and Temple Health alignment; and Clinical affiliates and partnerships.  

“As the Lewis Katz School of Medicine navigates the evolving landscape of education and healthcare, we are so grateful for the dedication of all the participants across each phase of this strategic planning process,” said Dean Goldberg. “Your expertise, passion and Temple spirit are building the foundation for our big, bold and bright future.” 

An upcoming day-long retreat on January 9 will serve as a collaborative platform for all work group members, along with numerous stakeholders from the broader community, to collectively refine the mission, vision and strategies. The final plan is slated to be completed in February.