Graduating from medical school is just the first step to achieving your dreams of becoming a practicing doctor, and your medical residency in Iowa will help get you to the finish line. During your residency, you will learn real-life experience working with patients and navigating the complexities of working with colleagues, hospital administration, and patients. Even though your residency program is a training program, you will still be held accountable for every action you take. With all this pressure, it's no wonder most medical residents are overwhelmed. When doctors are overwhelmed, mistakes are made.
If you find that you are facing issues during your medical residency program, a medical resident defense advisor can help. Call our offices today.
Dismissal from Iowa Residency Programs
While you are working on your medical residency, any personal or professional mistakes you make will affect your career and your reputation as a physician, especially if you are pursuing a career in Iowa, where communities are exceedingly close-knit. Just one mistake could mean the difference between a thriving practice and a new career altogether.
Whether you are a first-year intern or a more seasoned resident, the stress of making it through a medical residency in Iowa, keeping up with the workload, meeting the expectations of your colleagues, supervisors, and patients, and continuing your education can be incredibly overwhelming and stressful. This kind of overwhelm and stress can lead to unnecessary mistakes. Your residency program knows this, and so your personal and professional behavior, medical competency, and ability to abide by the rules will be held under strict review. If you are unable to meet their expectations, you could be dismissed from your medical residency program. This is especially true if you are unable to perform in more than one category of your residence, have made an egregious error in patient care, or have more than one violation.
Ethical Personal or Professional Behavior
All professions have specific standards their members are expected to meet, and if they are unable to, the consequences generally are not irreparable. But the medical profession is different. If a doctor makes a mistake, they lose public trust – which is one of the most important aspects of their career because, without it, they wouldn't have any patients.
Doctors are expected to have the proper training and instruction in medical information and studies, as well as in their professional and personal behavior. In fact, the American Medical Association (AMA) has laid out a particular national code of medical ethics that residents must follow to improve the quality of their patient care and public health. Examples of violations of the code of medical ethics include:
- Negligently using social media.
- Being blamed for sexual misconduct.
- Receiving bribes.
- Making care decisions for a patient despite having a conflict of interest with them.
- Abusing substances while working or being publicly intoxicated.
- Getting a DUI.
- Getting charged with assault.
- Pocketing pharmaceutical drugs from the hospital without permission.
- Discriminating against patients, colleagues, hospital staff, or anyone outside the hospital.
- Unable to manage stress, which could lead to medical errors.
These actions could all lead to sanctions from the medical review board, complete dismissal from your medical residency in Iowa, or other long-lasting consequences.
Competency Issues
Your ethical prowess can only get you so far when you are a medical resident. While it is extremely important, if you are unable to master the six core competencies of the medical field, as laid out by the Accreditation Council for Medical Education (ACGME), you will have a hard time progressing to the next stage of your career. These six areas include:
- Patient Care: You must provide your patients with high-quality, compassionate care that is not just appropriate, but effective at treating their health issues.
- Medical Knowledge: You must have a strong understanding of such topics as biomedical and clinical information, as well as how to apply that understanding in real-life situations.
- Practice-based Learning and Improvement: You will only be able to become a truly capable doctor if you spend your time turning inward for self-reflecting on your performance. This self-reflection will help you become more competent in the medical field.
- Interpersonal and Communication Skills: Being able to communicate with anyone, whether it is the hospital administrative staff, your nurses, patients, colleagues, or supervisors, will reduce the possibility of errors. Improved communication skills will also foster better collaboration between yourself, your supervisors, and your other classmates.
- Professionalism: Medical professionals are supposed to adhere to certain ethical principles while also being aware of what other people need. If they cannot uphold these principles, it could cause long-lasting consequences that might affect their residency or medical license.
- Systems-based Practice: Doctors have to be able to prove that they are aware of, and competent in, not only national healthcare systems but the ones in place in Iowa as well.
Sanctions and the Disciplinary Board
Teaching hospitals have disciplinary boards that will ensure your compliance with the hospital residency program's policies. If you violate these policies, you could be sanctioned by the board. Generally, sanctions range from verbal reprimand to suspension or expulsion from the program altogether. No matter the punishment, it will have an effect on your medical career down the line.
In Iowa, you must disclose these disciplinary issues when applying for your medical license. If you conducted a serious violation of hospital policy, it might mean being denied your license to practice medicine, which would hurt your reputation and any future career prospects you were counting on.
Hiring a Medical Resident Defense Advisor
It is important to get through your medical residency with little or no issues. Sometimes though, it is impossible, and even the most careful of medical residents can make a mistake. If this happens, working with a medical resident defense attorney will guarantee you the best possible outcome for your case. Attorney Joseph D. Lento and Lento Law Firm have years of experience helping medical residents in similar situations. As a national medical resident attorney, Attorney Lento has the experience to negotiate with your program's general counsel to reach an equitable resolution and lessen any chance of litigation. Call our offices today at 888-535-3686 today or schedule a consultation online.
