HOUSE BILL 23

55th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2021

INTRODUCED BY

Doreen Y. Gallegos

 

 

FOR THE LEGISLATIVE HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE

AND THE INDIAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

 

AN ACT

RELATING TO HIGHER EDUCATION; ADDING REQUIREMENTS FOR THE LICENSURE OF MEDICAL SCHOOLS.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

     SECTION 1. A new section of Chapter 21 NMSA 1978 is enacted to read:

     "[NEW MATERIAL] MEDICAL SCHOOL LICENSURE REQUIREMENTS.--

          A. Prior to issuing or renewing a license to operate a medical school in New Mexico, the higher education department shall require a medical school to:

                (1) obtain executed agreements from at least five different clinical affiliates in New Mexico that have inpatient bed capacity of one hundred fifty or more licensed beds;

                (2) obtain the required number of executed agreements and faculty credentialed appointments from New Mexico-based preceptors as defined by the medical school applicant's programmatic accreditor; and

                (3) demonstrate the medical school's ability to facilitate the creation of new graduate medical education programs within New Mexico. At a minimum, the medical school applicant shall demonstrate and provide documentation that the medical school applicant is the procuring cause for the creation of at least one first-year resident position in New Mexico for every ten students in the medical school applicant's initial approved class size. The documentation shall include evidence that the graduate medical education program submitted its application to the accreditation council for graduate medical education for approval.

          B. The higher education department shall maintain an appeals process for medical schools in New Mexico that have had a license denied by the higher education department.

          C. As used in this section:

                (1) "clinical affiliate" means a hospital, physician office, ambulatory care center, surgical center or health department;

                (2) "executed agreement" means an agreement signed by the designated medical school official and designated official of the institution providing access for medical students to clinical rotations and education;

                (3) "faculty credentialed" means the process by which the medical school ensures that the physicians providing clinical education have the required education, training and licensure to practice medicine;

                (4) "graduate medical education" means any type of formal medical education pursued after receipt of an allopathic or osteopathic physician degree. Graduate medical education includes internship, residency, subspecialty and fellowship programs, in all fields of medicine and surgery, recognized by and enabling state licensure in New Mexico;

                (5) "medical school" means a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine and awards a professional degree for physicians and surgeons, including a bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery, doctor of medicine or doctor of osteopathic medicine;

                (6) "preceptors" means licensed, practicing allopathic or osteopathic physicians who, under a faculty appointment with a medical school, mentor medical students and provide clinical education for core and elective clerkship rotations;

                (7) "procuring cause" means the verification that the medical school initiated and facilitated a third-party health care organization to develop, fund and implement a new graduate medical education residency program; and

                (8) "programmatic accreditor" means, for allopathic physicians, the liaison committee on medical education and for osteopathic physicians, the commission on osteopathic college accreditation."

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