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:

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(1)     for the purpose of providing third- and fourth-year medical student training, demonstrate that the school has obtained executed agreements with at least four clinical affiliates in New Mexico that have sufficient capacity to provide access to a comprehensive training program for its students. The medical school shall ensure that these agreements represent urban, rural and frontier areas;

(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)     for the purpose of building new graduate medical education residency training, demonstrate the ability to facilitate the creation of such new graduate medical education residency programs within New Mexico, with a preference for primary care programs as defined by the state, in urban, frontier and rural medical facilities. At a minimum, the medical school applicant shall demonstrate and provide documentation that the 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 applicant’s initial approved class size. When possible, preference shall be given to primary care programs in urban, frontier and rural areas.

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, outpatient medical clinic or center, surgical center or health department;

(2)     “comprehensive training” means that the clinical affiliate has the capability to provide all of the following services within its premises: inpatient adult medical and surgical services, pediatrics, labor and delivery, emergency room and critical care services;

(3)     “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;

(4)     “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;

(5)     “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;

(6)     “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;

(7)     “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;

(8)     “primary care” means family medicine, general psychiatry, general internal medicine, general pediatrics and pediatric medicine;

(9)     “procuring cause” means evidence that the medical school has created graduate medical education positions in the state, either at the medical school’s own medical facility or through partnerships with third-party clinical affiliates; and

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