National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation Meeting

AGENCY:

Department of Education.

What Is the Purpose of This Notice?

The purpose of this notice is to announce the upcoming meeting of the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA). Parts of this meeting will be open to the public, and the public is invited to attend those portions.

When and Where Will the Meeting Take Place?

The public meeting will be held on Monday, September 14, 2009, from 8 a.m. until approximately 5 p.m. in the Barnard Auditorium, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20202. Due to security restrictions, all attendees must pre-register with the Acting Committee Director in order to be admitted to the building on the day of the meeting. Please notify the contact person, listed below, prior to September 1, 2009 to pre-register.

What Assistance Will Be Provided to Individuals With Disabilities?

The meeting site is accessible to individuals with disabilities. If you will need an auxiliary aid or service to participate in the meeting, e.g., interpreting service, assistive listening device, or materials in an alternate format, notify the contact person listed in this notice at least two weeks before the scheduled meeting date. Although we will attempt to meet a request received after that date, we may not be able to make available the requested auxiliary aid or service because of insufficient time to arrange it.

Who Is the Contact Person for the Meeting?

Please contact Dr. Rachael A. Shultz, the Acting Executive Director for the NCFMEA, if you have questions about the meeting. You may contact her at the U.S. Department of Education, 1990 K St., NW., Room 7127, Washington, DC 20006-8129, telephone: 202-219-7009, fax: 202-219-7005, e-mail: Rachael.Shultz@ed.gov Individuals who use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) may call the Federal Information Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339.

What Are the Functions of the NCFMEA?

The NCFMEA was established by the Secretary of Education under Section 102 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. The NCFMEA's responsibilities are to:

• Upon request of a foreign country, evaluate the standards of accreditation applied to medical schools in that country; and
• Determine the comparability of those standards to standards for accreditation applied to United States medical schools. Comparability of the applicable accreditation standards is an eligibility requirement for foreign medical schools to participate in the Federal Family Education Loan program, 20 U.S.C. 1071 et seq.

What Items Will Be on the Agenda for Discussion at the Meeting?

The Committee will review the standards of accreditation applied to medical schools by several foreign countries to determine whether those standards are comparable to the standards of accreditation applied to medical schools in the United States. Discussions of the standards of accreditation will be held in sessions open to the public. Discussions resulting in specific determinations of comparability are closed to the public in order that each country may be properly notified of the decision. The countries tentatively scheduled to be discussed at the meeting include: Australia/New Zealand, Costa Rica, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, Poland, Saba, Slovakia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Beginning September 1, 2009, you may call the contact person listed above to obtain the final listing of the countries whose standards will be discussed during this meeting. The meeting agenda, as well as the staff analyses pertaining to this meeting, will be posted on the Department of Education's Web site at the following address: http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/ncfmea.html . CDs containing PDF files of the staff reports will be available at the meeting at no charge to the attendees and otherwise upon request to the contact person listed above.

How May I Obtain Electronic Access to This Document?

You may view this document, as well as all other Department of Education documents published in the Federal Register, in text or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), on the Internet at the following site: http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister.

To use PDF, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free at this site. If you have questions about using PDF, call the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), toll free, at 1-888-293-6498; or in the Washington, DC, area at (202) 512-1530.

Note:

The official version of this document is the document published in the Federal Register. Free Internet access to the official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations is available on GPO Access at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/nara/index.html.

Authority: 5 U.S.C. Appendix 2.

Delegation of Authority: The Secretary of Education has delegated authority to Daniel T. Madzelan, Director, Forecasting and Policy Analysis for the Office of Postsecondary Education, to perform the functions of the Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education.