The Accreditation of higher education institutes began with the establishment of the National Commission for Academic Assessment and Accreditation in 2005.

The first medical school in Saudi Arabia was established in 1967 at King Saud University. This was followed by the establishment of many medical colleges over the span of fourty five years (1967 to 2011). In the last two decades, the curriculum in medical education has changed so as to maintain its efficiency and effectiveness. Considerable changes are underway in many medical colleges worldwide ¹.  

Telmesani et al 2011 ² reported the the Medical education has been changing rapidly in Saudi Arabia. Within a decade, the number of medical colleges increased from 5 medical schools with traditional disciplined-based curricula to 21 medical colleges with varied curricula ranging from the traditional to more innovative, problem-based, community-oriented programmes.

In the last two decades, the Saudi medical schools have been involved in curriculum reform and the curriculum in medical education has faced considerable changes to maintain its efficiency and effectiveness in many medical colleges worldwide ^{3 & 4.}

It is quite essential for the success of the educational process to reform the undergraduate curriculum  through the continuous evaluation and revision of the existing literature identifies the following as problems with today's curriculum including: Overcrowding of the curriculum, over presentation of some subjects, presence of relatively non-relevant subjects, dissociation between basic and clinical sciences, repetition of lectures and exams, need for new subjects of clinical relevance, predominantly hospital based medical education with minimal community-based practice, as well as non-optimal use of resources ³.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have witnessed over the last 40 years a rapid and major social, cultural, and economic transformation. The development of medical education in the region is relatively new, dating from the late 1960s. An important goal among the medical colleges in the region is to graduate national physicians who can populate the healthcare service of each country ^{5 & 6}.

The government new medical colleges are aiming for the quantity assurance in medical education. Moreover, the issue of the essential competences that all physicians must possess becomes very sharply focused. If defined, these competences would help indicate what teachers are supposed to teach, what students are expected to learn and what educational experiences all physicians must have. In addition, mechanisms to assure that all graduates of medical schools possess these competences at graduation must be developed ⁷.

Quality assurance involves more than the enforcement of agreed standards of operation. The standards that recognized accrediting associations develop and use to inspect and evaluate institutions and programs are important, but are minimum criteria. Meeting those standards means that a school or higher education institution has earned approval from its peers and education community and is eligible for other privileges.

Most educators strive for more than basic recognition. They aim to achieve excellence, a far less definable goal but an important one. Quality is not defined by regulations or negotiated standards. It ranges from the achievement of good results in traditional areas and processes to innovations that advance the state of the art

Standards are developed because without them the life would be unpredictable, chaotic and often dangerous.  Strict standards are used in construction of buildings, bridges, highways, and tunnels. Stringent security and maintenance standards are essential in aviation, and pilots are expected to have passed appropriate tests.  Proper governmental agencies are expected to develop standards to protect the quality of drinking water and food.  Consumers expect pharmaceutical products to be safe and effective because are checked against standards.  When people see doctors, they expect professional conduct and assume that he or she has met the licensing standards for practicing medicine.

This study designed to make sure medical schools meet the outcomes in Tomorrow's Doctors, to identify concerns and help to resolve them, and to promote equality and diversity in medical education.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) is the nationally recognized accrediting authority for medical education programs leading to the M.D. degree in U.S. and Canadian medical schools. The LCME is sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Medical Association.

An essential goal of each program of medical education leading to the M.D. degree must be the meeting of standards for accreditation by the LCME. The accreditation process requires educational programs to provide assurances that their graduates exhibit general professional competencies that are appropriate for entry to the next stage of their training, and that serve as the foundation for life-long learning and proficient medical care. While recognizing the existence and appropriateness of diverse institutional missions and educational objectives, the LCME subscribes to the proposition that local circumstances do not justify accreditation of a substandard program of medical education leading to the M.D. degree.

In this document the words "must" and "should" have been chosen with great care. The difference in terminology is slight but significant. Use of the word "must" indicates that the LCME considers meeting the standard to be absolutely necessary for the achievement and maintenance of accreditation. Use of the word "should" indicates that compliance with the standard is expected unless there are extraordinary and justifiable circumstances that preclude full compliance.

Also note that in the following section of standards in list format, periodic revision and amendment of the standards may result in the elimination of certain numbered standards (for example, there is no longer a standard numbered ED-45). It may also result in standards that include letters after the numerical suffix (for example, ED-1-A); the use of letter suffixes is not intended to indicate that such standards are subsidiary to other standards, but simply to indicate their placement with respect to surrounding standards.

The present study reports data from all staff members of the academic and clinical departments of college of medicine in Taibah University, kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Using the self administered, anonymous, reliable questionnaire of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), and translated to Arabic by The National Commission for Academic Accreditation & Assessment which has been established by the Higher Council of Education in kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The questionnaire was completed by 19 departments, 14 of them were in the male section. The mean total score percentage was just satisfactory (62%) in both college sides (the females and males sections) indicating relatively satisfaction with the environment, more negative and poor impression in the presence of plenty of problems in areas of the evaluation areas. The obvious notice is that there were no individual areas of excellence.

Percentage of the total score was (62.06%) for the males section and was (61.85%) for the females section and both of them just satisfactory (Table 1 & 2)

There were no statistical significant differences between the mean score of the evaluation within groups and between groups by using one way ANOVA test. (Table 3)

Table 1 shows group statistics results for the female and male sections mean total score and percentage comparison (in all items of evaluations)

The highest score in both sections was for the medical education department staff in the males section (75%) and the lowest score in the males section and in both sections as well was for Parasitology department staff (51.06%) and the highest in the females section was for the department of paediatrics staff (62.69%) and the lowest score percentage was for the staff of the department of gynaecology and obstetrics (57.88%) and all did not show any statistical differences between or within the department staff members in both females and males sections.

The present study concluded that the college of medicine, Taibah university, in AL-Madinah AL-Munawarah in bad need for honest effort of everyone in either the college of medicine or the Taibah university.

Conclusively, the questionnaire was completed by 19 departments, 14 of them were in the male section. The mean total score percentage was 62% indicating relatively satisfaction with the education environment, but in individual points there were a lot of unsatisfactory points of evaluations and were in both sections females and males, so the evaluation indicate more negative and poor impression in the presence of plenty of problems in points of the evaluation areas. There were no individual areas of excellence.

Further studies are needed to analyze educational environment where the LCME showed that the local circumstances is indicating a substandard medical education program can not lead to the ideal M.D. degree.

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