Medical students, graduates, and residents make enormous investments in their medical education and careers. A New York medical practice certainly justifies that investment. You made a good choice in pursuing New York State Medical License Board licensure through the New York State Education Department's Office of the Professions. Yet in New York, as in other states, you must pass the NBME, USMLE, or a combination to obtain your medical license. NBME / USMLE issues can delay or deny your New York state medical license and practice. Denial of a New York medical license may mean your inability to obtain a similar license elsewhere.
Your best move when facing the huge risk of New York medical license issues is to promptly retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team. Trust our skilled, experienced, and highly qualified attorneys to favorably resolve your NBME / USMLE issues for New York medical licensure. We are available in New York City, Hempstead, Brooklyn, Brookhaven, Islip, Oyster Bay, Buffalo, North Hempstead, Rochester, Yonkers, Huntington, Ramapo, Syracuse, Amherst, Smithtown, Albany, Greece, and across the rest of New York state. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to address and resolve your NBME / USMLE issues for New York medical licensure.
Rewards of New York Medical Practice
New York is among the best of states in which to pursue a medical practice. Outstanding hospitals like the Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Mount Sinai Hospital, Bellevue Hospital Center, Strong Memorial Hospital of the University of Rochester, NYU Langone Hospitals, New York-Presbyterian / Weill Cornell Medical Center, Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital, and Montefiore Hospital (Moses Campus) ensure the availability of rewarding practice opportunities in world-class facilities, with the substantial resources of a most sophisticated healthcare system. Keep the full rewards of a New York medical practice in mind when determining to retain us to address and favorably resolve your NBME / USMLE issues.
New York Medical Licensing Authority
New York, like other states, has a highly developed regulatory system for licensing physicians. New York State Education Laws Section 6522 requires most persons who intend to practice medicine in the state to obtain a state medical board license. Section 6526 offers only limited licensure exceptions, mostly requiring licensure or equivalent qualifications in another jurisdiction, or permitting only temporary practice such as under supervision in a medical residency. Section 6523 establishes the New York State Medical License Board to implement the statutory requirements for licensure. Under Section 6524, physicians interested in New York licensure must apply to the State Medical License Board through the New York State Education Department's Office of the Professions, while proving that you meet all licensure requirements. Let our attorneys help you ensure that you have that opportunity for New York medical licensure, by addressing and favorably resolving your NBME / USMLE issues.
New York Medical Licensure Requirements
New York State Education Laws Section 6524 requires candidates for licensure to show that they have graduated from an approved medical school, completed the applicable residency requirement, are of good character, meet criminal background check standards, and have passed an approved examination, among other requirements. One of those other requirements is that your application for licensure is complete, accurate, and properly documented. Beware misrepresentations on your application as to your NBME / USMLE issues. Misrepresentations on your application or inconsistencies with documentation you supply or licensing officials obtain can result in denial of your application and the issuing of credential fraud disciplinary charges. Let us answer any questions you have as to how to represent to New York state licensing officials the status of your NBME / USMLE issues.
New York Medical Licensing Exam Requirements
As to the examination requirement, administrative rules of the New York Department of Education's Office of the Professions offer USMLE, FLEX, and NBME exam options. You must generally pass the NBME, USMLE, or some combination to obtain a New York medical license, without which you will not practice medicine long term in the state, beyond your supervised medical residency. Let us help you clarify and answer any questions you have about your NBME / USMLE examination status and your ability to meet New York state licensing examination requirements. But in short, you'll need to pass the NBME / USMLE or an equivalent exam if you intend to gain New York licensure.
Potential NBME / USMLE Issues Affecting New York Medical Licensure
Medical students, graduates, and residents can have any number of NBME / USMLE issues. Those issues delaying, denying, or otherwise affecting New York medical licensure can have to do with qualifying for the exam, passing the exam within retake limits, overcoming USMLE irregular behavior charges, qualifying to retake the exam after anomalous exam performance, overcoming an invalidated score, or proving extenuating circumstances to qualify for additional exam retakes after emergency withdrawal or failure. The following discussion addresses each of these potential issues including how our attorneys may be able to help you favorably resolve them.
New York Physician Issues Qualifying for the NBME / USMLE
You must first qualify for the NBME / USMLE exam in order to eventually obtain New York State Medical License Board licensure. The USMLE Bulletin of Information states the exam qualification requirements. First, your application to the USMLE to take the exam must be accurate and non-misleading. False, misleading, inconsistent, or conflicting representations may result in irregular behavior charges and the denial of your application. You must also supply the required documentation of your identity, citizenship or lawful residency status, medical education, and criminal conviction history. Your USMLE exam application may trigger the following issues interfering with your ability to take the exam to gain New York state medical licensure:
- USMLE officials may question your medical school's accreditation during your entire enrollment, without which your education may not qualify you to sit for the exam;
- USMLE officials may reject your medical school transcript for lack of good standing or completed coursework, or due to unresolved disciplinary issues;
- USMLE officials may reject your medical school transcript as an inadequate or unauthenticated copy, or for its transmission by the wrong means or from other than the school's registrar;
- USMLE officials may find your documentation of your citizenship or lawful residency status to be incomplete or inadequate; or
- USMLE officials may find records reflecting disqualifying criminal court convictions or other background issues, or may be unable to complete background checks for lack of proper authorization or responses.
How We Help Address Your USMLE Qualifying Issues
Our highly qualified attorneys know how to address and resolve the above USMLE qualification issues. We can communicate and advocate with your medical school's registrar and other officials to ensure that the registrar updates your transcript with completed coursework, appealed and corrected grades, and the favorable resolution of outstanding discipline or other issues. We can invoke your medical school's dispute resolution procedures if necessary. We can also assist the school's registrar with getting your transcript or other school documentation to the USMLE in the right form and by the right means. We can also help you obtain and properly submit citizenship, lawful residency, background check, and other documentation, in the right form and by the right route, while advocating with responsible officials in each of those areas as necessary. You may just need our authority, relationships, and reputation as highly qualified attorneys to get the action you were unable alone to induce.
New York Medical Licensing Exam Attempt Limits
Exceeding the permitted number of NBME / USMLE retakes may be a different issue you face, delaying your New York state medical licensure. Don't feel like you're alone, if you failed one or more of the USMLE step exams. Medical students taking the Step 1 and Step 2 exams and medical residents taking the Step 3 exam generally have other pressing obligations, limiting their time to study for their step exams. An early attempt before thorough preparation may be a sound strategy, lest the candidate can pass without greater effort, especially given the USMLE retake policy. The USMLE maintains a retake limit of four attempts for each of the three step exams, after which qualifying for another retake may be difficult or impossible. New York state medical licensing laws impose no other retake limit.
How We Help You Address USMLE Retake Limit Issues
Let us help you address retake limit issues and strategies. Extra retakes may be available under the USMLE's extenuating circumstances policy. If you lost a retake attempt due to a last-minute withdrawal for illness, injury, or other emergency, or you failed an attempt for the same emergency reasons, the USMLE extenuating circumstances policy authorizes exam officials to not count the missed exam or failed attempt on a convincing showing of your emergency excuse. The USMLE policy generally requires your prompt notice to exam officials of your emergency, right after it occurs and before you receive failed exam results. If you need that extra retake because of the USMLE four attempts limit, let us help you make a prompt and convincing showing of your emergency, with appropriate documentation.
New York Physician USMLE Irregular Behavior Issues
Suspicions of NBME / USMLE exam cheating or exam disruption are another potential cause of delays in your New York state medical licensure. If exam officials receive credible complaints and gather evidence of cheating, they will send the accused examinee a notice of irregular behavior. USMLE officials define irregular behavior as “action ... that could compromise the validity, integrity, or security” of USMLE exam procedures. The USMLE information lists the following common examples of irregular behavior:
- an applicant falsely represents qualifications for the exam or provides false documentation with the exam application;
- an examinee registers or attempts to register for the exam when ineligible or takes or attempts to take the exam when disqualified;
- an examinee takes the exam for someone else or has a substitute take the exam for the examinee, or attempts to do either act;
- an examinee gains or attempts to gain access to confidential exam questions or answers;
- an examinee violates USMLE exam rules or test center staff instructions, or interferes with test center staff performance;
- an examinee carries or attempts to carry unauthorized materials or devices into the exam room;
- an examinee photographs, copies, or removes or attempts to remove exam materials from the room, or makes notes during the exam to remove from the room and share or use;
- an examinee recalls and shares exam questions and answers after the exam or solicits others to do so;
- an examinee alters or misrepresents exam scores or exam schedule or status to a medical board or other licensing official, program, or employer; or
- an examinee fails to cooperate in an irregular behavior investigation of the examinee's conduct or another examinee's conduct.
How We Help You Address USMLE Irregular Behavior Charges
Our attorneys can help you address USMLE irregular behavior charges. For your best results, though, you must promptly retain us as soon as discovering that USMLE officials suspect you of irregular behavior, such as if you do not receive your score when other examinees do so. We may be able to intervene in a USMLE investigation with your exonerating and mitigating evidence in time to head off formal charges. Otherwise, the notice that you receive from the Office of the USMLE Secretariat of your irregular behavior charge should describe the adjudication procedure through which we can help you contest the charge. Let us help you respond to that notice. Remember that if your response is inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent with other information, and potentially misleading, USMLE officials may use that response to confirm their charges.
New York Physician Anomalous Performance Issues
Erratic performance on the NBME / USMLE may be another issue you face that delays or frustrates your New York state medical licensure. USMLE officials analyze exam responses for what they label anomalous performance. They do not detail exactly what amounts to anomalous performance, because doing so would reveal confidential exam security information. But indications are that anomalous performance usually means very low performance, outside the normal distribution for qualified candidates who make an earnest effort at preparing and passing. A USMLE anomalous performance notice may mean that you scored so low that officials believe you were not ready for the exam, did not make a responsible attempt, and perhaps should not be afforded a retake opportunity.
How We Help You Address USMLE Anomalous Performance
Unfortunately, USMLE officials do not permit examinees to challenge an anomalous performance notice through any adjudication process. Doing so could, once again, reveal confidential exam security information. Yet an anomalous performance notice does not necessarily mean your automatic bar from a retake opportunity. We may be able to advocate convincingly on your behalf that you had an excuse for the anomaly, such as having mismarked lines of answers or otherwise mistakenly failed to follow exam protocols for accurately recording your answers. Let us help you explain the circumstances to the extent that you are able, so that you retain retake attempts and can pass the exam and obtain your New York state medical license.
New York Physician Invalidated Score Issues
A different USMLE issue you may face, delaying your New York state medical licensure, is an invalidated exam score. USMLE notice to you that it has invalidated your exam score likely means that analysis of your exam answers suggests cheating or other undue advantage. It may mean that your score was so high as to fall outside the normal distribution of examinees, even those with superior preparation, knowledge, and skills. You likely passed the exam but with too high or too perfect of a score on items to which you might have gained some access, like answering correctly all previously used questions but missing several of the previously unused questions. Invalidated score charges differ from irregular behavior charges in that the latter depend on some observation or other outside evidence of your misconduct, while invalidated score charges depend solely on your exam answers themselves.
How We Help You Address USMLE Invalidated Score
You should have an opportunity to contest your invalidated USMLE score. The USMLE notice of your invalidated exam score should describe the adjudication process that we can invoke to help you present your exonerating and mitigating evidence. Challenging an invalidated exam score may be especially difficult, given the confidentiality USMLE officials will maintain as to test items, answers, and answer patterns. But let us help you examine your full circumstances for a potential explanation. And if you have already lost your adjudication process, let us review your avenues for alternative special relief.
New York Licensing Officials Response to NBME / USMLE Issues
While we help you resolve your NBME / USMLE issues, your main objective with respect to New York state medical licensing issues is to ensure that they keep your application open and do not deny your application based on preliminary information that USMLE officials may supply. USMLE officials retain the right to disclose your exam status and scores to state licensing officials or others with an official interest in that information. They may notify New York state medical licensing officials that you do not qualify for the USMLE, you failed the exam exhausting your retake limit, or you engaged in disqualifying misconduct. Those indications may trigger the denial of your license application. But those indications may also be preliminary, before our appearance and intervention has completed USMLE adjudication processes that may lead to favorable results. In short, we may just need to buy you time with New York state medical licensing officials.
Our Role Addressing New York State Medical License Board Status
Communications from our attorneys to New York State Medical License Board officials can help keep your license application file open, even in the face of information from USMLE officials that your exam status is under dispute. We can supply convincing documentation and information related to our skilled and earnest efforts to resolve your USMLE issues.
Invoking New York Administrative Review Procedures
The New York State Administrative Procedure Act authorizes an administrative hearing to review final agency determinations. If New York State Education Department, Office of the Professions officials close your medical license application file and deny the application, before proper resolution of your USMLE issues, that action may be the sort of erroneous agency decision that an administrative law judge will reverse under administrative review procedures.
Our Role in New York Administrative Review Procedures
Our attorneys know how to invoke New York State Administrative Procedure Act review of a medical licensing decision. The hearing may require our attorneys to show the steps we have taken to resolve your USMLE matter, including communications, documentation, and the legal authority for resolution, proving a substantial likelihood of success. Let us pursue your avenues for relief, through administrative procedures and to the courts if necessary and appropriate.
The Role of Qualified License Defense Counsel
The above administrative procedures, with the USMLE, New York Office of the Professions, and New York administrative tribunal, require substantial administrative law knowledge, skill, and experience to strategically invoke to their greatest effect. Local criminal defense attorneys, civil litigators, and transactional lawyers are unlikely to have that knowledge, skill, and experience. By contrast, our attorneys focus on student issues and professional license defense, gaining the experience, honing the skills, and developing the reputation and relationships for success. Don't entrust your New York medical practice prospects to unqualified local attorneys. Retain the best available professional license defense.
Premier NBME / USMLE Defense in New York
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available across New York state for your medical licensing matter involving NBME / USMLE issues. We have helped hundreds of students, residents, physicians, and other professionals in New York and nationwide successfully resolve their licensing issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain our premier attorneys. Let us take the swift and sure action necessary to preserve and protect your New York medical license application and career.
