You know the huge investment you have made in your medical education, anticipating Florida Board of Medicine licensure and a rewarding Florida medical practice. You also likely realize that you must obtain that Florida Board of Medicine license to practice in the state and that your inability to get a Florida license may mean your related inability to license in other states. State medical boards nationwide require qualifying licensees to show that they have passed the NBME, USMLE, or similar medical licensing exam. Your NBME / USMLE issues are an obstacle not only to your Florida Board of Medicine licensure but to your practice in any other state.
Make no mistake: your NBME / USMLE issues can not only delay but ultimately frustrate and deny your effort to obtain a Florida Board of Medicine license in order to enter permanent medical practice in the state. If you face such issues, then your best move is to promptly retain the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team for the skilled, experienced, and effective attorney representation you need to favorably resolve those issues. Our attorneys are available in Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Hialeah, Port St. Lucie, Cape Coral, Tallahassee, Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, and at any other location across Florida. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for your best Florida Board of Medicine outcome, favorably resolving your NBME / USMLE issues.
Benefits of Florida Medical Licensure
You doubtless chose to seek medical licensure in Florida because of the great potential benefits and rewards. Florida is frankly a great state in which to practice medicine. Jackson Memorial Hospital, Orlando Health Orlando Regional Medical Center, AdventHealth Orlando, Tampa General Hospital, UF Health Shands Hospital, St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Baptist Hospital of Miami, Sarasota Memorial Hospital, and Lakeland Regional Medical Center are among the state's many outstanding medical facilities, as part of the state's strong and vital healthcare system. Don't overlook your anticipated rewards from a Florida medical practice when deciding how to responsibly and successfully resolve your NBME / USMLE issues. Get our highly qualified help now.
Florida Medical Licensure Authorities
You must satisfy Florida Board of Medicine officials that you have successfully resolved your NBME / USMLE issues if you are to obtain a license to practice medicine in Florida. The Florida Medical Practice Act regulates the practice of medicine in the state. The Act's Section 458.307 creates the Florida Board of Medicine expressly to license physicians for practice in the state. The following section authorizes the Florida Board of Medicine to adopt rules and regulations for physician licensure. The Act's Section 458.311 requires any physician desiring to practice medicine in the state to apply to the Florida Board of Medicine. Our attorneys can help you communicate, advocate, and negotiate with Florida Board of Medicine officials to ensure that you have a full and fair opportunity to favorably resolve your NBME / USMLE issues in order to obtain a Florida medical license.
Florida Medical Licensure Requirements
The Florida Medical Practice Act's Section 458.311 sets forth the requirements to obtain a Florida Board of Medicine license. Those requirements include applying to the Florida Board of Medicine to show and document the minimum age, qualifying medical education, graduate medical training, good moral character, clean criminal background check, and medical licensing examination passage. Keep in mind that your application must also be accurate and complete. Beware of any misrepresentations or misleading information about the status of your NBME / USMLE issues. Credential fraud can be an independent ground for disqualifying you from licensure, even if you would have been able to meet the requirements if your answers had been accurate and non-misleading.
Florida Medical Licensing Exam Requirements
The Florida Medical Practice Act's Section 458.311 also specifies the NBME, USMLE, or any combination of the two exams as the qualifying licensing examination. You must pass the NBME / USMLE or a similar approved exam to get your Florida Board of Medicine license. The Florida Board of Medicine adopted an administrative rule, codified at Florida Administrative Code Section 64B8-5.001, confirming the NBME and USMLE as qualifying examinations. Let us help you favorably resolve your NBME / USMLE issues. You'll need to do so to gain your Florida medical license.
Potential NBME / USMLE Issues Affecting Florida Medical Licensure
Your NBME / USMLE issue seeking Florida medical licensure can take one or more of the following several different forms:
- qualifying for the exam;
- passing the exam within the applicable retake attempts limit;
- obtaining a passing score in the face of irregular behavior charges;
- remaining qualified for a retake after anomalous exam performance;
- obtaining a passing score after an invalidated score; and
- proving extenuating circumstances to qualify for additional retake.
Consider below each of these potential issues along with how our attorneys may be able to help you favorably resolve those issues.
Florida Medical Graduate Issues Qualifying for the NBME / USMLE
Qualifying for the NBME / USMLE exam may be your first obstacle to Florida Board of Medicine licensure. Candidates look to the USMLE Bulletin of Information for exam qualification requirements. In general, you must apply to take the exam with an accurate and complete application containing no false or misleading representations. Your application must establish and document your identity, lawful citizenship or residency status, qualifying medical education, and other information. USMLE exam applications can raise any of the following issues, delaying or frustrating your ability to sit for the exam:
- defects in your medical school transcript, such as gaps in the necessary completed coursework, a lack of good academic standing, or unresolved disciplinary issues;
- the registrar's failure to adequately authenticate your medical school transcript or to convey the transcript by the required means or in the required form;
- questions over your medical school's accreditation status during the entire time of your enrollment for medical studies;
- inadequate documentation of your lawful citizenship or residency status, such as a birth certificate, passport, Social Security card, visa, driver's license, state identification, and other official documents;
- evidence of disqualifying criminal court convictions or other background issues;
- incomplete responses, inconsistent or contradictory responses, and missing documents in your application, suggesting potential credential fraud.
How We Address Your USMLE Qualifying Issues
We can help you address any or all of the above issues to qualify you for the NBME / USMLE. Our attorneys know how to communicate and assist medical school registrars in updating and correcting records and providing authenticated transcripts in the correct form and by the proper route. We also know how to invoke medical school procedures to help you resolve questions about your good standing and any lingering disciplinary or academic progress issues your transcript may reflect. We can also help you obtain the necessary birth certificate, passport, visa, or other citizenship or lawful residency documentation or obtain corrected or updated court records resolving background issues over criminal charges or convictions. Whatever your issue is that prevents you from qualifying for your next step exam, let us help you promptly address and resolve it.
Florida Medical Licensing Exam Attempt Limits
Your NBME / USMLE issue delaying your Florida Board of Medicine licensure may instead involve retake limit issues. Medical school students and graduates commonly expect to retake one or more of the USMLE's three step exams, knowing that they have several attempts to make amidst their other medical studies and clinical training obligations. You are certainly not unusual if you have failed a USMLE step exam, even more than one of the three step exams, more than once. Yet, you also likely realize that state medical boards and the USMLE itself may impose retake limits. The USMLE publicizes a four-attempt retake limit for each of the three step exams. Other USMLE rules and procedures may relieve you from that limit under extenuating circumstances, as we explain further below. Notably, though, Section 458.311(2) of Florida's Medical Practice Act authorizes a five-retake limit, not the USMLE's four-retake limit. Depending on whether the USMLE will allow you to exceed its own retake limit, you may have an additional attempt under Florida law and rules. Let us help you address that issue if your NBME / USMLE issue involves retake attempt limits.
Florida Medical Graduate USMLE Irregular Behavior Issues
You may alternatively face NBME / USMLE irregular behavior issues, preventing or delaying your Florida Board of Medicine licensure. Irregular behavior is the term the USMLE adopts for what might commonly be called cheating, which the USMLE defines as “any action ... that could compromise the validity, integrity, or security of the USMLE process.” The USMLE's website shares the following irregular behavior examples:
- registering or attempting to register for the exam when ineligible;
- taking the exam or attempting to take the exam when disqualified;
- making false statements or providing false documentation on exam applications;
- taking the exam for someone else or having a substitute take the exam for you;
- attempting to gain unauthorized access to exam questions or answers;
- removing or attempting to remove materials from the exam room or making notes during the exam to later share or use;
- recalling and sharing exam questions and answers after the exam or soliciting others to do so;
- carrying or attempting to carry unauthorized materials or devices into the exam room;
- violating exam policies or test center staff instructions or harassing test center staff;
- unprofessional exam behavior disrupting other examinees;
- altering or misrepresenting your exam scores, status, or outcomes to a medical board or other official; and
- failing to fully cooperate in a USMLE investigation of your alleged exam misconduct or the misconduct of others.
How We Invoke USMLE Irregular Behavior Procedures
You may first suspect that USMLE officials suspect your irregular behavior because of a delay in the release of your score after your classmates or colleagues have already received their scores. Retain us immediately on any suspicion, information, or notice that USMLE officials are investigating your alleged irregular behavior. We may be able to promptly provide those officials with explanatory information, heading off irregular behavior charges. Otherwise, if you receive notice of irregular behavior charges, let us appear on your behalf to timely invoke USMLE irregular behavior procedures. The Office of the USMLE Secretariat should email you notice of the irregular behavior charges. That notice should include a disclosure of USMLE's adjudication procedure, which the USMLE Bulletin of Information does not disclose. Do not respond in haste before retaining us for our guidance, and do not ignore the notice of charges. Your failure to cooperate with a USMLE investigation can be independent grounds for invalidating your passing exam score. We can help you make accurate, timely, cooperative, and complete responses en route to resolving your NBME / USMLE issues.
Florida Medical Graduate Anomalous Performance Issues
Alternatively, you may face USMLE notice that your exam answers indicated anomalous performanceissues, delaying your Florida Board of Medicine licensure. Anomalous performance is, in USMLE parlance, different from irregular behavior. While irregular behavior suggests cheating of some form based on information outside of your exam answers, anomalous performance issues arise solely from the analysis of exam responses. Anomalous performance issues do not necessarily indicate cheating. Instead, they tend to indicate that the examinee was not prepared for the exam or perhaps made some gross error in entering exam answers. USMLE officials, though, will not disclose to you the nature of your anomalous performance because doing so could compromise exam confidentiality and security. For the same reason, USMLE does not permit you to challenge anomalous performance through an adjudication process.
How We Help You Address USMLE Anomalous Performance
While USMLE does not permit challenges to anomalous performance, we may be able to help you present information to USMLE officials to ensure that you get to retake the exam without penalty related to your anomalous performance. Exam officials could, for instance, bar you from retaking the exam if they believe that your medical studies failed to prepare you for a reasonable effort at passing the exam. Our assistance may enable you to explain your anomalous performance in a way that permits a retake, maybe while also relieving your anomalous attempt from counting against your retake limit.
Florida Medical Graduate Invalidated Score Issues
Alternatively, you may receive USMLE notice that it has invalidated your exam score, once again delaying your Florida Board of Medicine licensure. Once again, an invalidated exam score differs from USMLE's notices of irregular behavior (cheating or disruption) or anomalous performance (unpreparedness or unreliable attempt). An invalidated exam score indicates that your exam answers show a pattern of potential cheating, such as a perfect score or other score too far outside the normal distribution to be trustworthy. Invalidated scores once again involve analysis of the exam answers rather than other information or observations of your conduct during the exam.
How We Help You Address USMLE Invalidated Score Issues
As in the case of a notice of irregular behavior, the USMLE notice of your invalidated exam score should include your available adjudication process. Do not attempt to invoke that procedure without our skilled assistance. USMLE officials may construe any inaccuracies, inconsistencies, or gaps in your representations as interfering with the investigation, a failure to cooperate, and attempted fraud. Let us help you timely and properly invoke the adjudication process and make accurate and complete statements with appropriately trustworthy documentation. Consult us if you have already lost your adjudication process. We may be able to negotiate alternative special relief through a general counsel or invoke court or other review.
Florida Medical Graduate USMLE Extenuating Circumstances
Alternatively, your NBME / USMLE issue delaying your Florida Board of Medicine licensure may have to do with your last-minute withdrawal from a scheduled exam or your poor performance on an exam because of a sudden illness, injury, or other emergency circumstance. Your missed exam or exam failure may put you at risk of running out of permissible retake attempts. You may need the extra attempt to pass your next USMLE step exam.
How We Help You Address USMLE Extenuating Circumstances
USMLE rules and procedures include an extenuating circumstances policy that, in certain cases, may relieve you from losing the retake attempt due to a missed or failed exam from an arising emergency. Retain us the moment you realize you are missing or failing a critical scheduled USMLE step exam, especially one involving your last available retake attempt, because of an emergency. We can help you timely invoke the USMLE extenuating circumstances policy and advocate for the extra retake.
Florida Board of Medicine Response to NBME / USMLE Issues
The above NBME / USMLE issues may delay your Florida Board of Medicine application for licensure beyond the period board officials are willing to leave it open or may result in premature USMLE notice to board officials that you cannot pass the exam. Under Florida Statutes Section 458.311(8), Florida Board of Medicine officials may close your file and deny your application unless you are able to convince board officials that you stand a reasonable likelihood of passing the exam to qualify for licensure.
Our Role Addressing Florida Board of Medicine Status
We can help you keep Florida Board of Medicine officials updated as to our efforts on your behalf to help you responsibly and timely resolve your NBME / USMLE issues. In many cases, all that medical board officials need is reliable communication from our office providing sound and trustworthy information on those efforts toward resolution of outstanding issues. Medical board officials are, in those cases, more likely to keep your file open while USMLE completes its own review and adjudication process as long as you are able to show your due diligence. Our efforts on your behalf are the best evidence of your diligence. Let us document those efforts to Florida Board of Medicine officials who are awaiting your resolution of NBME / USMLE issues.
Invoking Florida Administrative Review Procedures
Florida's Administrative Procedure Act authorizes administrative law judge and, in some cases, court review of final agency determinations. A Florida Board of Medicine determination to deny your medical license application is a final agency determination. For example, Section 120.57 of the Administrative Procedure Act authorizes an administrative hearing to determine whether the agency had facts supporting its final decision. The Florida Board of Medicine officials denying your application may, for instance, have failed to take account of USMLE appeals in process and favorable USMLE resolutions permitting you to proceed with an exam attempt or retake.
Our Role in Florida Administrative Review Procedures
Our attorneys can help you gather and present the evidence and make the arguments before the administrative law judge or civil court reviewing the Florida Board of Medicine's denial of your application for a medical license. All you may need is additional time to finally resolve your USMLE issues. Our administrative appeal may buy you that time. Our attorneys have the administrative knowledge, skill, and experience to invoke these protective and saving procedures.
The Role of Qualified License Defense Counsel
Beware of retaining unqualified local criminal defense counsel or another local lawyer who lacks the necessary administrative licensing law knowledge, skill, and experience. Your temptations may be to retain a local lawyer recommended to you or with whom you are already familiar. But administrative law and procedures differ markedly from court rules and procedures. Licensing law and issues, and medical licensing requirements, in particular, present their own peculiar issues. It can take a lawyer years of experience in the field to gain the insight, discernment, and strategic skills and judgment to make a winning case. Don't leave your future medical practice in the hands of unqualified counsel.
Premier NBME / USMLE Defense Available in Florida
Retain the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team for your Florida Board of Medicine licensure matter involving NBME / USMLE issues. We have helped hundreds of students, graduates, and professionals in Florida and nationwide successfully resolve their licensing issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain our highly qualified attorneys. We are available across Florida to take swift and effective action to preserve and protect your medical education, license, and practice future.
