UK Pharmacy Professor Elected to Medical School Accreditation Organization

PRESS RELEASE

June 28, 2013 (Lexington, Kentucky)—Joseph L. Fink III, Professor of Pharmacy Law and Policy as well as the Kentucky Pharmacists Association Professor of Leadership in the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy, has been elected to serve a 3-year term as a Public Member of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the agency that accredits MD degree programs in the US and Canada. His term begins July 1, 2013.

The purpose of LCME accreditation is to protect the public by advancing the quality of medical care provided to patients and, thereby, reducing morbidity and mortality. The LCME was founded in 1942 to unify the separate accreditation activities of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the Council on Medical Education and Hospitals of the American Medical Association (AMA). Since the advent of the Higher Education Act adopted by the United States government in 1965, the LCME has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the reliable authority for the accreditation of programs of allopathic medical education leading to the MD degree.

The LCME accredits complete and independent medical education programs whose students are geographically located in the United States or Canada for their education, and which are offered by universities or medical schools that are chartered and operated in the United States or Canada.

Currently there are 141 programs in the US that are accredited with 16 more in the process of gaining full accreditation. There are 17 accredited programs in Canada.

A faculty member at UK since 1981, Dr. Fink is also a Professor in the College of Public Health, Professor in the Martin School of Public Policy and Administration, and Professor of Clinical Leadership and Management in the University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences. He received his professional education in pharmacy at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and then completed his legal education at Georgetown University Law Center. Dr. Fink is also a legal columnist for Pharmacy Times.