The foundation of GCSOM, formerly known as The Commonwealth Medical College, began with the establishment of the Northeastern PennsylvaniaMedical Education Development Consortium in 2004. The consortium included business, medical, community, and government representatives. After acquiring funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and other state, federal and private philanthropic sources, the Commonwealth Medical Education Corporation was formed. In the spring of 2007, Robert M. D’Alessandri began his tenure as president and founding dean. Commonwealth was awarded degree-granting authority by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 2008 and received preliminary accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education in 2008. D'Alessandri resigned from his position as dean and president in April 2011. In June 2011, the LCME placed GCSOM on probation due to financial stability concerns. Provisional accreditation was granted in 2012, with full accreditation granted in June 2014. In June 2014, GCSOM was also granted full accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. GCSOM accepted its first class of medical and master's students in 2009. GCSOM graduated its first MD and fourth MBS classes in May 2013. On September 28, 2016, Geisinger Health System announced it had acquired the Commonwealth Medical College. The acquisition integrated aspects of the health system, such as residency training programs, into TCMC, and also introduced new Master's programs. Additionally, TCMC was renamed Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine.
Admissions and academics
The MD Class of 2020 had an average MCAT score of 30 and GPA of 3.62 at admission. 12% of the class is from groups historically underrepresented in medicine, and 71% of the 108 students that comprise the class are from Pennsylvania. 29% of the class is specifically from Northeastern Pennsylvania and North Central Pennsylvania. The school was among the first United States medical schools to adopt the Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship model as the standard clinical experience for the entire medical school class in the third year. This allows students to follow a panel of patients over the course of a year. Students live in the community and train with clinical preceptors in the different core disciplines of family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, OB/GYN and general surgery. The key difference is the year-long curriculum as opposed to traditional “block” clinical rotations.
