If you're in medical school, you already know that medicine isn't just a career. By pursuing this path, you've decided to dedicate your life to helping others. That means investing in lifelong education; it means maintaining rigid codes of ethics and morals; it means accepting a life of selfless service. Your school does all it can to prepare you for all of this by holding you to the very highest academic and professional standards.
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Seton Hill (LECOM-Seton Hill) takes its mission one step further than most medical schools. At LECOM-Seton Hill, students don't just study medicine. They also take a full range of courses in the humanities designed to instill in graduates values like integrity, compassion, and respect for differences.
Of course, it's important to have lofty expectations and high ideals. We all fall short sometimes, though, even doctors. Maybe that means falling behind in a course or celebrating too hard after a final and winding up with a DUI. Maybe it means something more serious, like succumbing to an addiction to painkillers or engaging in some form of sexual misconduct. Whatever the case, a mistake shouldn't define who you are, and it shouldn't doom your academic and professional careers. If you're in trouble as a medical student, you should know that there is help out there. An attorney-advisor can help you get your life back on track, restore your reputation, and become the doctor you were always meant to be.
Academic Standards at LECOM-Seton Hill
LECOM-Seton Hill holds its students to the highest academic standards, and it keeps a close eye on whether students are meeting those standards.
The school expects you to maintain at least a C average (70%). Lower scores mean you're required to participate in remediation programs to get caught up. Consistently poor performance can lead to more serious academic sanctions. You could wind up repeating a year, for instance. Beyond the hassle and expense of re-taking courses, repeating a year can put your financial aid in jeopardy, making it harder to complete your degree. Of course, LECOM-Seton Hill also has the power to dismiss students altogether if it believes they simply can't handle the program's academic rigor.
Decisions like these are ultimately in the hands of the Student Promotion and Graduation (SPG) Committee. This body evaluates every student's progress at the end of every semester. The school's policy doesn't offer any guidance on how you might go about challenging SPG decisions. It does suggest, though, that there are ways to get relief. For example, it mentions appealing grades at the course level. An experienced attorney-advisor can guide you through this process and help make sure you don't wind up with burdensome sanctions.
Maintaining Professional Standards
LECOM-Seton Hill maintains equally high standards when it comes to “legal, moral, behavioral, ethical [and] health” conduct. It's important you recognize now that you will be held accountable throughout your career for any personal failings. Thus, medical school punishments can be even more severe than those handed out for academic mistakes. Violate doctor-patient confidentiality or get arrested for DUI, and you could easily find yourself facing dismissal from your program.
Here again, LECOM-Seton Hill's policy makes no mention of how students might go about appealing disciplinary decisions related to professional behavior. This suggests it may be difficult to challenge such decisions. A qualified attorney-advisor, though, knows the law as it applies to academic institutions and can protect your due process rights and get you the best possible resolution to your case.
Why Would You Need an Attorney?
You might be under the mistaken impression that lawyers are only useful for drawing up wills or defending people from criminal charges. The fact is, education is an important area of the law, and a lawyer who focuses on this area can be an invaluable resource for helping you handle unfounded accusations and unfair sanctions.
Here's just a partial list of how an attorney could help you.
- Remediation: Remediation can serve as a valuable safety net for anyone struggling in medical school. It's no exaggeration to say that it has saved many careers. That said, remediation can cost you in terms of both time and money. Before you sign off on any remediation program, you should consult an attorney to make sure you don't have other, better options. It could be, for example, that you would be better off appealing your original grade. An attorney can offer advice on how to do that.
- Cleaning up your transcript: Academic and professional lapses can both have serious repercussions on your future if they should wind up in your academic record. Transcript notations can cost you financial aid, keep you from moving forward in the program, and even affect your ability to establish your career. An attorney-advisor can help you keep notations out of your file and may even be able to offer suggestions for cleaning up your file when it already has a notation in it.
- Dealing with dismissal: Dismissal, in and of itself, is traumatic. At a minimum, it puts your academic progress on hold. However, a dismissal could mean the end of your ambitions medical altogether. Most medical schools aren't interested in candidates who have been dismissed from other programs. Even if you do manage to find a school that will accept you and you manage to complete your degree, your dismissal will still be a part of your file and could hurt your job prospects.
Joseph D. Lento Can Help
An attorney can certainly help you deal with medical school issues, but you need the right attorney. You want someone who specializes in helping students, someone with a background in educational law, someone with a proven track record of taking on schools and winning.
Joseph D. Lento is a fully-licensed, fully-qualified defense attorney. His work extends well beyond the courtroom, though. Joseph D. Lento built his practice defending students' rights and helping them get justice. Joseph D. Lento has served as legal advisor to hundreds of medical students. He knows the law; he knows how to deal with faculty and administrators. Most importantly, Joseph D. Lento is a fighter. He's ready and willing to stand up for you and make sure your school treats you fairly.
If you're facing a sanction from your medical school, don't wait. Contact the Lento Law Firm today at 888-555-3686 or use our automated online form.
