Physician is among the most honored profession in all of our society. Of course, doctors literally hold our lives in their hands. Maybe even more significant, though, they treat that responsibility with the utmost seriousness. They recognize that trust is essential to the doctor-patient relationship and that building that trust is a sacred obligation. In short, doctors hold themselves and each other to the highest personal, ethical, and professional standards.
Medical schools play a vital role in producing doctors, not just because they educate young men and women in the discipline of medicine but because they instill the desire for excellence in all their graduates. That's particularly true at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine. LECOM is the largest medical school in the country, receives more applications each year than any other school, and produces more graduates. You don't get to that position by taking it easy on your students.
There's another side to all this excellence, though. Actually, getting through LECOM can sometimes be a rocky journey. It's not always easy to conform to such rigid expectations. In fact, most medical students make a mistake somewhere along the way. A mistake shouldn't cost you your career, though. If you find yourself in trouble at LECOM, know that there is help out there. The Lento Law Firm specializes in helping students. No matter what kind of problem you may be facing, they can help you get your life back on track.
Academic Standards at LECOM, Elmira
We all want to know that our doctors are well-educated, that they know everything there is to know about treating the human body. It's no surprise, then, that LECOM maintains high academic expectations or that it keeps a close eye on whether its students are meeting those expectations.
To stay in good academic standing at LECOM, you must maintain a C average (70%). Should you fall below this standard in any course, you are required to fulfill a remediation program. Fall behind in more than one course, and you could find yourself repeating a year. That can impact your financial aid package since money is closely tied to your progress from one year to the next. Of course, the school can also dismiss you entirely if it feels like you can't keep up.
Decisions about your progress are largely in the hands of the Student Promotion and Graduation (SPG) Committee. This body meets at the end of every semester to evaluate your academic record, and it has the power to impose sanctions. School policy doesn't include a process for appealing these sanctions, suggesting that in most cases, the SPG's decisions are final. However, the policy does explain how to appeal course grades. An experienced attorney-advisor can help you prepare for the several steps involved in this process.
Maintaining Professional Standards
As demanding as LECOM's academics can be, often students have more trouble conforming to the school's ethical and professional requirements. Learning the kind of self-discipline required to keep yourself above reproach is no easy task. Yet, LECOM generally punishes personal failings more severely than academic failings. If you fall behind in your coursework, the school will almost always try to work with you to solve the problem. Should you get a DUI or be accused of domestic violence, the school won't hesitate to dismiss you from the program.
Here again, LECOM's policy makes no reference to how you might go about appealing sanctions for professional or ethical misconduct. That's particularly curious since these kinds of accusations are usually far more subjective than deciding whether or not you've failed a course. Ethics isn't as cut and dried as determining grade points.
If you should find yourself facing such an accusation, then, it's important you take it seriously and that you seek help from an advisor, someone with a background in defending medical students.
How Can an Attorney Help You?
Most people associate lawyers with courtrooms. You might be surprised, then, by the idea that a lawyer could help you get through medical school. A defense attorney's job, though, is to help clients defend themselves against charges, whether those charges are being leveled by a prosecutor or an academic standards committee. In fact, Joseph D. Lento specializes in student cases, and he's as comfortable dealing with faculty and administrators as he is dealing with judges and juries.
What exactly can Joseph D. Lento do for you?
- Evaluate remediation plans: Remediation plans offer you an important safety net. Things happen in medical school—maybe you and your partner get pregnant; maybe you develop an unexpected health problem. Remediation ensures you have a chance to catch up. However, remediation isn't free. Signing on to a remediation plan can also threaten your financial aid. You may find, then, that you have better options, like appealing your original grade. LECOM may not always tell you these options. An experienced attorney-advisor will.
- Clean up your transcript: Any sanction—even remediation—can create problems for you if it winds up as part of your permanent record. It could cost you financial aid, it could interrupt your progress, and it could interfere with your ability to start your professional career. An attorney can help you make sure sanctions don't show up on your transcript and, in some cases, can even help clean up past mistakes.
- Avoid dismissal: Dismissal is the most serious sanction you can face as a medical student. If LECOM should dismiss you, you'll find it difficult to enroll anywhere else. Most schools give precedence to new candidates. Even if you should find a spot in another program, and even if you should manage to obtain your degree, your prior dismissal could still impact your career. Thus, if you're facing dismissal, you need to take it seriously, and you need to make sure you have a qualified attorney at your side to help build your case.
Joseph D. Lento Help
Joseph D. Lento is a fully-licensed, fully-qualified defense attorney. He isn't just any defense attorney, though. Joseph D. Lento specializes in defending students in campus judicial cases. Over the years, Joseph D. Lento has represented hundreds of medical students in matters both large and small. He knows the law, and he's a passionate defender of student rights.
If you're facing a sanction from your medical school, don't wait until you've been given a costly sanction. Contact the Lento Law Firm today at 888-555-3686 or use our automated online form.
