All eight residency and fellowship programs at the UCR School of Medicine that are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) have received continued accreditation with commendation.

The ACGME reviews graduate medical education programs annually in the U.S. to ensure that they adhere to all program requirements, a process that includes monitoring scholarly activities, faculty work, site affiliations, and feedback from residents and fellows. This year, the reviewers commended every UCR SOM program for their “demonstrated substantial compliance with the program requirements without any new citations.”

“I was mighty pleased,” said Rajesh "Robby" Gulati, MD, associate dean for Graduate Medical Education. “It means that we have the capability and the expertise to run excellent programs.”

Graduate Medical Education at the SOM operates three residency programs and six fellowships that are accredited by the ACGME: family medicine, internal medicine, and psychiatry (residency programs), and cardiovascular medicine, child and adolescent psychiatry, critical care medicine, gastroenterology, and interventional cardiology (fellowships). A ninth program, minimally invasive gynecologic surgery (MIGS), is separately accredited by the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists (AAGL).

Gulati oversees every program, remaining in close collaboration with each one. He credited the work of the GME program directors and coordinators, noting their success despite the additional challenges involved with the SOM’s programs spread out among community hospitals.

Gulati also noted the support of Deborah Deas, MD, MPH, the vice chancellor for health sciences and the Mark and Pam Rubin dean of the School of Medicine. “I think that it is very important, whether it's undergraduate medical education or graduate medical education, that you have a supportive leader at the top, and I have nothing but praise for Dean Deas," he said.

Priscilla L. Verales, psychiatry residency program coordinator, said that receiving accreditation with commendation recognized their hard work. “It is not a one-person recognition, it is a team recognition,” she said. “I want to give congratulations to everyone who has helped us in this process, because this is one of many that we expect to get.”

“This means that UCR School of Medicine's residency programs are standing out and providing exceptional training and education to our residents,” Verales added. “It demonstrates that we are well on our way to fulfilling our mission of bringing physicians to our community and training them to treat patients in our region.”