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Dismissal from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School can be a crushing blow to your medical education and career ambitions. UT Southwestern is without a special place to earn a medical degree with its innovative curriculum and early clinical experiences. Its leading medical research facility and state-of-the-art hospital provide students with incredibly rich opportunities for the finest medical education. UT Southwestern's long history of graduating large numbers of skilled medical practitioners gives you an outstanding alumni network and great opportunities for residency and medical practice. You definitely gained something special with your UT Southwestern enrollment. Don't let dismissal ruin everything for which you've worked.
Common Reasons for Dismissal
The most common reason for UT Southwestern Medical School's dismissal may be meeting the school's satisfactory academic progress policy. Medical studies are hard, the hardest of professional programs. Yet to maintain your financial aid and progress through the curriculum, UT Southwestern requires that you maintain a 3.00 cumulative grade-point average and pass all required courses within the school's maximum timeframe. Failing to meet SAP standards can lead to academic probation, loss of financial aid, and dismissal.
UT Southwestern Medical School also maintains a Professionalism Policy, a part of which is a Student Code of Professional Conduct, that requires every UT Southwestern student to conform to the standards of the medical profession. Violation of professionalism standards is a second-leading cause of medical student dismissal. UT Southwestern's professionalism standards reach everything from personal comportment around drugs, alcohol, property theft or damage, domestic violence, and other crime to clinical comportment, including dress, demeanor, clinical skills, devotion to assigned duties, and respect for supervisors, peers, and subordinate staff. Make no mistake: small professionalism issues can magnify into large dismissal risks.
UT Southwestern Dismissal Process
UT Southwestern not only has academic standards and professionalism policies setting student standards. It also has the personnel and procedures in place to pursue student dismissal. UT Southwestern publishes both general Procedures for Student Discipline and specific procedures for sexual harassment cases under federal Title IX. UT Southwestern's Title IX policy, like such policies at other colleges and universities, must, under federal regulations, include procedures ensuring that the accused student gets notice, a fair hearing, and the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses at that hearing with the assistance of a retained attorney advisor. UT Southwestern's general discipline procedures provide more-limited but still-meaningful protections.
Investigation and Preliminary Determination
UT Southwestern's Procedures for Student Discipline give the Medical School dean authority to designate discipline investigators. The dean may suspend the accused student during the investigation. The dean reviews the investigation's evidence, giving the accused student to do likewise and to submit the student's own evidence. The dean then proceeds to decide any appropriate charges.
Formal Hearing on Disciplinary Charges
When the student disagrees with the dean's decision to dismiss or impose other sanctions, the student may invoke a hearing before an officer or panel. The student may retain an attorney advisor for the hearing to assist the student in presenting exonerating and mitigating evidence. The student will receive the hearing decision within ten days, notifying the student of dismissal or other discipline.
UT Southwestern Appeals Process
Your hearing decision for dismissal need not be the end of your UT Southwestern medical education. UT Southwestern's Procedures for Student Discipline permit you to appeal the hearing officer or panel's decision to dismiss or impose other sanctions. You must file your appeal with UT Southwestern's president no less than fourteen days from the dismissal decision. Effective appeals require more than just a complaint letter to the president. Your appeal must demonstrate grounds for reversing the hearing decision. The president may also offer you and your retained attorney advisor an appeal oral argument. Oral argument can, when handled by a skilled and experienced attorney advisor, make compelling an otherwise ordinary appeal. UT Southwestern's Procedures for Student Discipline expressly grant the president broad discretion to decide the appeal, stating,
"The President may approve, reject, or modify the disciplinary decision or may require that the hearing be reopened for the presentation of additional evidence and reconsideration of the decision."
UT Southwestern Defense Attorney Advisor Representation
A skilled and experienced attorney advisor can help you invoke any of the above UT Southwestern Medical School procedures. If you face dismissal but have not yet had an informal resolution conference or formal hearing, then premier attorney advisor representation may make the difference in that conference or hearing. If you have already faced and suffered dismissal before the hearing official or committee, then your retained attorney advisor may appeal that dismissal for a second chance at your prompt reinstatement. Don't go it alone. Trust a skilled and experienced attorney advisor team for your most effective defense. Your UT Southwestern Medical School education is worth fighting for and defending.
UT Southwestern Alternative Special Relief
Even UT Southwestern Medical School students who have already suffered dismissal and exhausted all published procedures and appeals may have reinstatement available to them. Like other medical schools, UT Southwestern employs general counsel, outside retained counsel, and other oversight officials to ensure that the school does not violate student rights in ways that expose the school to litigation, regulatory, and reputational risks. The Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team has the national reputation and relationships to reach, gain the respect of, and negotiate with oversight officials for reinstatement in some cases, even after an apparently final dismissal. Don't give up without exhausting all available channels.
Premier Defense Services for UT Southwestern Students
Get the skilled and experienced attorney advisor defense representation you need to fight and overturn your dismissal from UT Southwestern Medical School. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team and national education attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento for your dismissal appeal and to seek alternative special relief. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now.
