Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine in Nutley, N.J., has received accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education after a seven-year review process.
"This is the culmination of years of work that started with a vision to reinvent medical education to create a physician workforce to thrive in a new state of medicine," Robert Garrett, CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health, said in a Feb. 22 press statement. "We are reaching our goals to keep physicians in New Jersey, to diversify the physician workforce and graduate doctors who will humanize healthcare."
Receiving accreditation is an important milestone for the school, the press release noted, because "medical education programs leading to the MD degree must first hold institutional accreditation to be eligible for initial full accreditation and for continuing accreditation by the LCME."
The medical school's opening in 2015 was significant, as it was the first private medical school in New Jersey to open in decades. Since enrolling its first class in 2018, the school has graduated two cohorts of students, several of whom now work for hospitals owned by Hackensack Meridian Health.