Dr. Mark Ott’s wife likes to keep him humble and focused by reminding him that until he secures accreditation, he is the inaugural dean of the “imaginary” BYU School of Medicine.
Both Stefanie Ott and the members of the national accreditation board — the Liaison Committee on Medical Education — have Dr. Ott’s full attention.
“They have incredibly challenging standards, and in fact, we are not a medical school until they say we are medical school,” he said Monday at the 35th annual International Society conference at BYU’s Hinckley Center.
Job No. 1 is to submit more than 1,000 pages of planning documents to the LCME by Aug. 1. Dr. Ott said his team members have completed about 60% of that work.
If they manage to finish in time, and the LCME grants accreditation during the earliest possible window, BYU would be on schedule to open its doors to students in fall 2027.
“This is an incredible amount of work on an extremely aggressive timeline,” Dr. Ott said. He added, “If everything went perfectly, the earliest they could be here would be the fall of 2027 or the year after that.”
That’s because if BYU doesn’t get the documents in on time, or the application is unsuccessful, the LCME requires a one-year wait to resubmit.
Since success is so important, BYU has hired a few consultants who are experts on the process. The school also has assembled an advisory council and 15 working groups with more than 150 professional volunteers.
“They are amazing people,” Dr. Ott said. “These are all people that have full-time jobs, that have other responsibilities in healthcare or other related things, at BYU and around the country, and they’re each putting in another 10 to 20 hours a week of work on top of their family, church and career responsibilities, and they’re doing it as volunteers.”
Dr. Ott said his team recently reviewed the counsel they are receiving and made a startling realization.
“If we were paying for all these services that these people are giving between January and July, it would be roughly $10 million in salary,” he said. “These are a bunch of very wonderful people.”
Dr. Ott said the top question he gets asked is where the BYU will build the medical school.
“It’s going to be in exactly the right place,” he said to laughter.
An announcement will come relatively soon, he added: “BYU has several properties that will work really well.”
Another question he fields regularly is why BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which sponsors the university, waited until now to launch a medical school.
“The answer to that is very simple. It is very complicated to create a medical school, and it is extremely expensive,” he said.
In fact, he later said that the planning team still has not completed the financial model it will submit.
“It’s very complicated, and the number is terrifyingly large,” Dr. Ott said, adding later that he expected that research dollars and philanthropy will help fund the school’s work.
Later he said the timing is right because the pieces are now in place.
“Resources exist within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and among its members that are phenomenal,” he said.
The right people are prepared, the right structure is in place at BYU and in the church and Intermountain Health has grown strong enough to provide vital clinical relationships and residencies, he said.
The right set of circumstances ... I don’t think existed five years ago or 10 years ago,” Dr. Ott said. “As much as people thought it would have been nice to have (a medical school), God is very patient. There’s like a giant chessboard that he is bringing all pieces into alignment for this to succeed.
“It’s just it’s wonderful to be in my position and to see God’s hand over and over and over.”
In response to an audience question, Dr. Ott said the LCME restricts a new school’s first class of students to 60 in case a school fails and students have to scramble to find seats at other schools.
“The ultimate size of our class will be much larger than that,” he said.