Graduating from medical school is a dream come true and beginning your residency in North Dakota is the culmination of that dream. After all of the in-school work, you're finally going to get an opportunity to work in the real world, obtaining real-world experience and working with real, live patients. While you're technically still being trained, you're going to be held accountable by patients, your supervisors, and your team members for everything you do.
As a new doctor, you have an ethical duty to your patients, the hospital, and yourself. While this is a great time, you'll most likely make mistakes due to the fact that you are brand new to this experience.
Everyone makes mistakes, including the people that you will be reporting to. The difference between you making a mistake and someone else in another industry making a mistake is that doctors are held to much higher standards. This is because the mistake a doctor can make can literally kill someone.
Even if you're dealing with typical resident life issues like 80-hour work weeks and little to no sleep, you are still responsible for being the very best doctor you can be. This is where mistakes are sometimes made, and those mistakes can cost you your residency.
Dismissal From North Dakota Residency Programs
When you're a medical resident, any mistake that you make can have a devastating impact on your career. Your responsibilities will only increase with time, and with those increased responsibilities come increased risks. As you go through your journey, you're going to be judged on your professional behavior, the way you interact personally with people, how competent you are, and on a host of different other levels. You could make a mistake on any one of these levels, and any one of those mistakes could cost you your career.
Ethical, Personal, or Professional Behavior
When you're starting out in other professions, you're given a lot of leeway to make mistakes. Doctors don't get those same considerations.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has created something called the national codification of medical ethics. This has been created to help improve public health and to also ensure that the quality of care that patients receive when they go to the hospital is always top-notch. Some of the medical ethics that you could be accused of violating include the following:
- Improperly and irresponsibly using your social media
- Engaging in sexual misconduct
- Improperly handling your stress, resulting in you making medical errors and also causing issues with your team members who depend on you
- Accepting bribes
- Discriminating against others on the basis of race, sexual orientation, sex, religion, or any other issues
- Engaging in substance abuse or public intoxication while you're on the job
- Making decisions about a patient's care in spite of having a conflict of interest with that patient
- Being accused of a physical assault or a DUI
- Stealing pharmaceuticals from the hospital
Competency Issues
The level of competency you display is key in helping ensure that you're developing into a responsible, professional, and dependable doctor. The Accreditation Council for Medical Education requires that residents have competency in six separate areas in order for them to be able to successfully practice medicine.
- Patient Care: You're required to provide your patients with top-quality patient care. That care needs to be compassionate, appropriate, and as effective as possible.
- Professionalism: You need to carry yourself on a professional level at all times. Professionalism means adhering to a code of ethics at all times and making sure that the needs of others are always at the top of your mind. Violating these principles could result in major issues that could cause you to lose your license.
- Interpersonal and communication skills: Your bedside manner and your ability to effectively communicate with everyone you work with and for is critical. You must master the ability to speak and collaborate with your peers, with your patients, and with everyone you come into contact with. Doing so will help you avoid errors that could put your license at risk.
- Systems-based practice: As a doctor in South Dakota, you need to be able to show competency in the healthcare systems in the state as well as those across the United States.
- Practice-based learning and improvement: You have to look at your residency as an opportunity for you to grow and learn. This means continuing to stay up-to-date on the latest information, skills, and anything else so that you can face the challenges of your profession.
- Sanctions and the Disciplinary Board All teaching hospitals have disciplinary boards. These boards exist to enforce hospital and program policy compliance. As a resident, it is your responsibility to make sure that you do not engage in behavior that is in violation of any of the policies set forth by your hospital. Penalties can range from nothing more than a verbal reprimand to something as severe as losing your license. Even middle-of-the-road sanctions can end up being devastating for your career, especially if you're required to reveal them down the road. One mistake that many students make is that they face disciplinary boards on their own. Don't ever do that. You could end up losing everything.
Hiring a Medical Residency Attorney
Whether you're a brand new, recently matched resident, or you're rounding out the final days of your residency, you need to make sure that you do everything in your power to complete your residency without any major transgressions. All students can make mistakes, but it's the types of mistakes you make that could prevent you from becoming the doctor you've always dreamed of becoming. If you're facing sanctions, you need to work with a medical residency lawyer who knows the industry and who can help you save your license.
Attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento and his team have worked with medical residents for years, helping them navigate the very situation that you're in right now. As a national medical resident attorney, he is in a unique position to be able to negotiate with the teaching hospitals' general counsel teams so that a solution can be found that works for everyone. The Lento Law Firm's years of experience can help increase the chance of you finding a resolution to this issue that works for everyone.
Don't let a mistake ruin everything you've worked so hard for. Call the Lento law firm today at 888-535-3686 or connect with them by sending a message via the online portal for more information.
