The authors examined the operational purpose of 48 items that establish the criteria for accreditation for teaching , learning and assessment in a medical school , and determined to what extent these criteria are applied by schools and local evaluators in 59 programs evaluated by the Consensus Committee on Medical Education ( LCME ) in the period 1994-1996. In this study, "application" meant that the evidence was offered , although this does not necessarily meet the criteria tested . as sources of information were used databases of medical education and self-assessments prepared by the powers that were undergoing accreditation studies , and reports prepared by ad hoc teams of evaluators . For each of the 48 applicants for accreditation powers , often offering evidence of compliance with the criteria verified by the evaluators was determined. Moreover, as the dissent of the powers evaluat...