Medical Residency Match Issues

Your Investment in Your Medical Education

To say that medical students put a lot into their education is a vast understatement. Earning a medical degree is generally regarded as the hardest of all academic achievements, requiring strenuous and sustained effort over a long period, with performance measured against rigorous step examinations. A medical degree is also expensive, with tuition costs approaching an average of a quarter of a million dollars plus the loss of earnings while in medical school. You have a tremendous amount invested in your medical education. Retain our premier Student Defense Team if you face any academic progression issue, misconduct charge, or other disciplinary issue interfering with your ability, medical residency match, or other ability to continue and complete your education. Preserve and protect your investment.

Your Reward from Your Medical Education

Yet medical graduates also rightly anticipate substantial rewards from their medical education. Those rewards include not only high income but also high job satisfaction, professional standing, and professional opportunity. The intrinsic rewards of a career in the top healing profession are uncountable. You doubtless had great reason to pursue your medical degree, whether out of a family commitment to medicine and the healing arts or through your own inspiration. Don't let academic progression issues, academic or behavioral misconduct charges, or other issues affect your medical residency match or other opportunity to complete your medical degree. Get our help immediately.

The Critical Role of a Medical Residency Match

The medical residency match is a critical step in your medical education. Medical education requires more than acquiring the vast knowledge base of anatomy, physiology, biology, and the diagnosis, progress, and healing of disease. Medical education also requires learning how to apply that knowledge base in the clinical setting within the customary practices of the medical field. Your medical residency is an essential part of your medical education. Fail to obtain a medical residency match, and you won't have the opportunity to hone and prove your skills in the residency. Depending on your medical school's requirements, you may still obtain your medical degree. But you won't likely be able to obtain medical licensure to practice in any U.S. state. A medical license and practice is very likely your goal if you expect to reap the substantial rewards.

Your Goal in a Medical Residency Match

Your goal in applying for multiple medical residencies isn't just to receive any match at all. Your goal is more likely to receive an ideal match with a premier institution in the professional field and geographic area you believe to be best for your future. But your bottom line is a successful match. Association of American Medical College data suggests that applicants average as many as seventy to one hundred medical residency applications, although the number of applications an applicant completes tends to vary widely by specialty field. Obviously, you prioritize your applications based on factors most important to you. Getting a preferred match can make a huge difference to your life and career. But getting a match at all is generally your bottom-line goal to advance your career. Let our Student Defense Team help if you face issues obtaining a match.

Failing to Obtain a Medical Residency Match

The failure to obtain a residency match is surprisingly common. The number of medical graduates seeking a residency each year, around 42,000, is about ten percent greater than the number of available residencies, around 38,000. That difference means that about ten percent of medical graduates who apply for a residency fail to receive one, at least initially. The National Resident Match Program claims that its process is “fair, equitable, efficient, transparent, and reliable.” That claim may be largely true as to the algorithm the NRMP uses and its other ordinary administrative procedures. But failures to match can happen for many reasons, whether involving NRMP administrative procedures or, more often, issues arising with the medical school. We are here to help you with your medical residency match issues, no matter their source.

Supplemental Medical Residency Matches

The National Resident Match Program anticipates that thousands of applicants will fail in their first effort to match with a residency program, leaving thousands of residencies unfilled. The NRMP thus offers the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) as “a uniform system for programs to offer unfilled positions to eligible unmatched or partially matched applicants through a series of offer rounds during Match Week.” If you failed to obtain an initial medical residency match, you may have already pursued a supplemental match through NRMP's SOAP option. But the issues that kept you from obtaining an initial match may just as well keep you from obtaining a supplemental match. Get our attorneys' help if you face such issues.

Medical Residency Match Factors

Many issues can interfere with your obtaining a medical residency match because medical residency programs consider many factors. A poor or incomplete application on any one or more of these factors a medical residency program considers could keep you from obtaining a medical residency match:

USMLE/COMLEX Step 1 scores;
USMLE/COMLEX Step 2 scores;
number of USMLE/COMLEX Step 1 and Step 2 attempts;
USMLE/COMLEX Step 1 or Step 2 score gaps;
medical school dean's letter confirming graduation;
letters of recommendation, especially from clinical instructors;
cumulative grade point average and class standing;
grades in specific courses, especially in the residency field;
gaps in medical school terms;
academic progression issues;
academic or research misconduct findings;
behavioral misconduct findings;
Title IX and other sexual-misconduct issues; and
other disciplinary findings and issues.

School Issues Interfering with a Medical Residency Match

While significant issues with any of the above factors can raise red flags for medical residency application reviewers, the first place one looks for medical residency match issues is generally with your medical school record. Most, if not all, of the above factors rely in some ways on your medical school experience, relationships, and record. If you have medical residency issues, they probably arise in one way or another out of your medical schooling. Consider the following medical residency match issues and how our attorneys may be able to help you overcome those issues to meet your medical residency match goals.

Academic Progression Issues in Medical Residency Match

Obviously, academic progression issues are a leading cause of failures to obtain a medical residency match. You won't generally get a medical residency match if you are not meeting your medical school's academic graduation requirements when applying for medical residencies. Those academic requirements are not simply to ensure the rigor of your school's program and the safe and competent practice of your school's graduates. Federal loan regulations require medical schools receiving loan proceeds to enforce minimum grade point, maximum duration, and minimum completion percentage requirements. Your school's registrar and financial aid office may have judged your academic record not to meet your school's federal satisfactory academic progress (SAP) requirements. Academic progression issues can thus take any one or more of the following forms:

a failing grade in a required course, and your inability to overcome the failure with repeated attempts;
a cumulative grade point average below your school's minimum, whether a 2.00, 3.00, or other minimum;
more course incompletes, failures, and withdrawals than the typical minimum two-thirds completion requirement;
more terms off, term withdrawals, and other delays due to illness or other causes, resulting in your failure to complete the degree within the maximum time frame.

Our Student Defense Team may be able to help you respond to academic progression issues by helping you appeal a grade, helping you appeal probation, suspension, or dismissal for failure to meet satisfactory academic progress, or helping you obtain administrative correction of an inaccurate academic record. We may also help you show extenuating circumstances for your academic progression issues, such as the school's failure to accommodate your educational disability, your illness or injury, or the death or disability of a loved one. We may also help you prove an achievable remediation plan so that you can correct any record of deficiency to clear your academic record for match purposes.

Academic Misconduct Charges in Medical Residency Match

When preferred medical residency programs have multiple applicants, and perhaps as many as dozens or hundreds of applicants, any little mark on an academic record may justify reviewers in passing over the applicant. If you face or have faced academic misconduct charges in medical school, a finding of misconduct could easily affect your match prospects, even if you did not suffer a severe sanction such as school suspension. Academic misconduct charges may include any of the following:

exam cheating, such as the use of unauthorized materials, accessing electronic resources during the exam, writing over time, or using a substitute for the exam;
assignment cheating, such as unauthorized collaboration, submitting another's work, unauthorized access to model answers or score sheets, or changing a grade after its entry;
plagiarism, copying another's work without correct attribution, and self-plagiarism, submitting the same work in two different courses without disclosure and permission; and
research fraud, such as altering or fabricating research data, making up sources, or misrepresenting sources.

Our Student Defense Team may be able to help you correct an incorrect record of academic misconduct, remove a record of a misconduct charge already resolved in your favor, contest pending charges through informal conference and formal hearings, appeal adverse findings, or obtain alternative special relief from academic misconduct findings through an appeal to oversight officials. Let us help you keep a clean academic record or clean up a record that does not accurately reflect your academic honesty and good character.

Behavioral Misconduct Charges in Medical Residency Match

Academic issues are not the only ones to frustrate medical school graduates in their residency applications. Behavioral issues can just as easily interfere with a medical residency match. Residency environments are professional environments requiring a high level of trust in the safety, stability, and competence of the medical resident. Residency application reviewers may reject out of hand any applicant whose school record reflects questionable behavior, including such issues as:

alcohol or drug abuse or addiction, and impaired class or clinical course attendance;
mental, emotional, or psychological instability, disability, or disturbance due to medication changes, stress, or disease;
property damage, trespass, vandalism, theft, unauthorized access to electronic records, and other property issues;
criminal charges and convictions, violations of state, federal, or local law, restraining orders, and other legal issues; and
allegations of patient abuse or neglect, supervisor insubordination, or harassment or disrespect of clinical colleagues and subordinates.

Our Student Defense Team may be able to help you defend and defeat behavioral misconduct charges, correct an inaccurate record of behavioral misconduct, correct a record showing a pending or open charge already resolved, appeal adverse findings already made, or obtain alternative special relief through a general counsel's office. You may have exonerating or mitigating evidence and other grounds for appropriate relief to remove a behavior-based obstacle to your medical residency match.

Title IX and Other Sexual Misconduct Charges in Medical Residency Match

One other character issue that medical residency programs may consider to deny your application has to do with sexual misconduct, whether falling within federal Title IX prohibitions or violating your medical school's broader sexual conduct policy. Title IX prohibits sexual assault, sexual harassment of the quid pro quo and hostile environment forms, stalking, dating violence, and domestic violence. Many colleges and universities further prohibit sexual exploitation such as voyeurism, sexual blackmail, and invasions of privacy. An off-campus domestic violence charge or restraining order could lead your medical school to commence sexual misconduct proceedings against you.

Our Student Defense Team may be able to help you defend and defeat the charge through the mandated Title IX protective procedures. We may be able to help you gather and present exonerating and mitigating evidence at a formal hearing or informal conferences, resulting in the dismissal of the charge. If you have already sustained a sexual misconduct finding, we may be able to help you appeal and reverse that record or obtain equivalent relief through alternative special channels. Don't let unresolved sexual misconduct allegations or adverse findings ruin your medical residency match opportunity.

Other Medical Residency Match Issues

Medical residency match issues can also arise outside of your medical school record. The match process itself is sufficiently uncertain that you may find yourself needing to get out of a medical residency commitment, defer or delay a commitment, or otherwise respond to allegations that you violated the rules of the Match Participation Agreement.

Withdrawing from a Medical Residency Match

The National Resident Match Program's rules generally require that you begin your matched residency program on its start date and continue through its first forty-five days. The program must likewise permit you to start and continue your residency for at least that same forty-five-day period. You may, though, have a good reason not to begin your residency as scheduled. Failing to do so, though, violates the NRMP's rules for your Match Participation Agreement unless you follow the NRMP's procedures showing appropriate grounds with the required documentation. Our Student Defense Team may be able to help you withdraw from a residency match without violating your Match Participation Agreement or respond effectively to allegations that you have already violated your Agreement.

Deferring or Delaying a Medical Residency Match

You may also wish to start or continue your medical residency but are unable to do so for good reason. Those reasons could include illness, injury, temporary disability, pregnancy, the illness or injury of a child, or other emergency dependent care. While NRMP rules permit certain grounds for deferring or delaying your medical residency without violating your Match Participation Agreement, you may find yourself unable to articulate, document, and prove those grounds. Don't risk losing your medical residency. Let us help you make the showing you need to preserve a successful match when you simply need a reasonable delay or deferral.

Defending Allegations of a Medical Residency Match Violation

The National Resident Match Program expects you to comply with its rules and abide by the terms of your Match Participation Agreement. One of those rules is that you not apply for, negotiate for, or otherwise seek another medical residency while under obligation to pursue or continue the medical residency for which you signed a Match Participation Agreement. Other violations of the Match Participation Agreement include:

credentials fraud in the form of inaccurate or incomplete information during the matching process;
trying to otherwise subvert or circumvent eligibility requirements or the matching process;
failing to accept and abide by the results of a residency match outcome;
engaging in unethical or unprofessional behavior in the residency match process or
other irregular activity in registration, submission of your rank order list, or your commitment to honor the match outcome.

You may face allegations that you violated your Match Participation Agreement in one or more of these ways. Don't risk losing your medical residency to false, exaggerated, or unfair allegations that you violated the NRMP rules or your Agreement. Let us help you defend and defeat those allegations so that you preserve your medical residency match and can complete your medical licensure requirements.

Medical Residency Dispute Resolution Procedures

The National Resident Match Program's rules provide for arbitration of disputes arising out of the medical residency process under the commercial arbitration rules of the American Arbitration Association. Those rules provide you with substantial protective procedures, including pre-hearing disclosures, formal hearing before an independent panel of arbitrators, and live testimony and cross-examination of witnesses. But those rules are also complex. Our attorneys know how to invoke those administrative procedures and how to advocate effectively in arbitration.

If, instead, your issues have to do with your medical school record and relationships, then your medical school will have similar administrative procedures. Those procedures will generally provide for some form of hearing, in addition to notice of the charges, review of evidence, and the opportunity to tell your side of the story, including through exhibits and witnesses. Those procedures, though, generally differ depending on whether your issues have to do with academic progress, academic misconduct, behavioral misconduct, or Title IX sexual misconduct allegations. Once again, our attorneys have the academic and administrative skills to deploy these school procedures to their best effect. Get our help to overcome your medical residency match issues.

Defending Medical Residency Match Issues

Medical students and graduates are generally highly skilled and disciplined in academic studies. You had to be skilled to get the undergraduate grades, admission test scores, medical school grades, and Step exam scores to approach your medical residency. Medical student and graduate issues more commonly have to do with intervening circumstances, including things like injury, illness, unaccommodated disability, pregnancy, child-rearing, or the death or disability of a loved one. Recognize that your medical school, your medical residency program, and the National Resident Match Program officials who deal with your application, match, and Match Participation Agreement are generally sensitive to these and other extenuating personal circumstances. Your defense may simply require our skilled services to articulate your compelling grounds for relief, together with our documentation of those grounds and the plan you have for moving forward.

Premier Student Defense Team for Medical Residency Issues

The Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team offers highly skilled attorneys who have substantial experience in academic administrative matters. Our attorneys have helped hundreds of college and university students, including medical students and other graduate and professional students, successfully complete their education and obtain related professional licensure against every common and many uncommon issues. When your medical education is at risk, don't rely on unqualified local criminal defense counsel. Instead, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team. Call 888.535.3686 now or chat with us. You have every reason to trust our services with your enormous investment in your medical education and degree.