A decision by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education enables UNLV’s medical school to begin recruiting and accepting students for its first class in July 2017.

Preliminary architectural rendering for the UNLV Medical School building. (UNLV)

Barbara Atkinson, founding dean of UNLV's School of Medicine, announces the school's receipt of a $3 million grant from United Health Foundation, April 5, 2016. (Jason Ogulnik/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

It’s official: UNLV’s burgeoning medical school has been granted preliminary accreditation, allowing the institution to begin recruiting and accepting students for its first class in 2017.

University officials received the good news Tuesday from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical degree-granting institutions in the United States and Canada. In addition to announcing the decision, they released a preliminary rendering of the school’s planned academic building.

The accreditation decision eliminates one of the final regulatory barriers to the medical school’s debut and allows admissions officials to move forward with student recruitment for the UNLV School of Medicine’s charter class of students, who are expected to begin courses July 17.

It also clears the way for the UNLV School of Medicine to become the first accredited allopathic medical school capable of granting MD degrees in Southern Nevada.

UNLV President Len Jessup said the accreditation decision moves the university one step closer to its goal of becoming a top-tier research institution and affirms the quality of the developing medical program.

“This is truly significant for the university,” he said. “It’s the permission that we’ve been waiting for to begin admitting students.”

The approval follows a site visit and report by a team sent by the accreditation committee over the summer to assess the nascent school.

That committee’s report complimented the UNLV School of Medicine’s planned curriculum, community collaboration and staffing, while suggesting improvement in diversity planning and details of student health care, said school Dean Barbara Atkinson.

She emphasized that full accreditation is a years-long process, but preliminary accreditation authorizes the school to open its doors.

“This is the main step,” Atkinson said. “This is the one that really says that we’re an accredited medical school.”

The UNLV School of Medicine can now join the Association of American Medical Colleges, which runs a central database that schools can use to process admissions applications.

Within a week, the school should have access to the database and will have the ability to solicit applications from interested students.

The school’s admissions committee will then assess applications and is expected to select the first class of students by March, Atkinson said.

The medical school awaits a $100 million donation before beginning work on a planned building in the Las Vegas Medical District. In the meantime, it’s completing renovations to a space atop the UNLV School of Dental Medicine building on the Shadow Lane campus as its temporary quarters.

That space, which will be used for classes and other student space, should be complete and furnished within a month, Atkinson said.

“It’s unbelievably quick,” she said of the school’s development. “This is as fast as you can do it. There’s no way it can be done any faster than this.”

The university, in conjunction with the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents, has arranged to transition many of the health clinics and graduate medical education programs operated by the University of Nevada, Reno, School of Medicine in Southern Nevada to UNLV’s control.

With the introduction of a new medical school in the southern part of the state, the Reno school will shift its focus to Northern Nevada.

Many of the Reno school’s Southern Nevada-based faculty also will transition to UNLV by next July.

Contact Pashtana Usufzy at pusufzy@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Follow @pashtana_u on Twitter.