A New Jersey medical practice can bring substantial rewards. The state's large population, strong economy, and sophisticated healthcare ensure substantial employment, practice, and professional development opportunities. You made a good choice of careers and locations and invested a tremendous amount in your medical education. Your NBME / USMLE issues, though, can delay and frustrate your New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners licensure, preventing your post-residency medical practice.
Your best move when facing NBME / USMLE issues that could prevent your New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners licensure is to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team. Strategic and effective representation by our highly qualified attorneys is available in Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Lakewood, Edison, Woodbridge, Toms River, Hamilton Township, Trenton, Clifton, Cherry Hill, Brick, Camden, Bayonne, Passaic, and in any other New Jersey location. Let us protect your New Jersey medical practice and preserve its substantial rewards. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now.
Opportunities for New Jersey Medical Practice
New Jersey has outstanding hospitals and other medical care facilities offering substantial employment, practice, and professional development opportunities. Those fine facilities include Hackensack University Medical Center, Morristown Medical Center, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, Cooper University Hospital, St. Joseph's University Medical Center, Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, and Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center, among many others. New Jersey's many populous cities and towns have attractive neighborhoods, while the state offers abundant recreational and cultural opportunities. New Jersey can make a great medical practice base for a flourishing life and professional career. We can help you resolve your NBME / USMLE issues to preserve those opportunities.
New Jersey Medical Licensing Authority
New Jersey's state legislature enacted the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners Law to ensure the safe and effective practice of medicine in the state. New Jersey Statutes Section 45:9-1 establishes the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners for that purpose. The Act's Section 45:9-6 requires physicians practicing medicine in the state to hold a State Board of Medical Examiners license. The New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners may obtain a civil court injunction against unlicensed medical practice and impose other penalties. Once your medical residency under the supervision of a licensed physician ends, you must have a Board of Medical Examiners license of your own to continue your medical practice. Let us help you resolve your NBME / USMLE issues so that you can get your license for permanent employment and practice.
New Jersey Medical License Application Requirement
New Jersey Statutes Section 45:9-6 requires physicians seeking a medical license to practice in the state to apply to the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners on the forms the Board supplies, making the showing and providing the documentation the Board requires. The same statute gives Board of Medical Examiners officials the authority to examine your application to determine whether it meets all license requirements. Those officials generally follow specific protocols to ensure that your statements are truthful, accurate, complete, and consistent with your documentation. Your documentation must also have the authenticity that the Board requires. False, inaccurate, and inconsistent representations may result in credential fraud charges and denial of your application. Your NBME / USMLE issues increase the prospect for incomplete or out-of-date information. Let us help you ensure that your license application is accurate and updated to ensure that you do not face credential fraud charges over those issues.
New Jersey Medical Licensure General Requirements
Section 45:9-6 of the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners Law states the general licensure requirements. Those requirements include a minimum age of 21 years, good moral character, U.S. citizenship or the intention to gain citizenship, and a degree from an approved medical school. Section 45:9-6.2 defines the requisite good moral character to include showing that you have not suffered a felony criminal conviction, conviction of a gross misdemeanor, or conviction of any crime of moral turpitude. Section 45:9-7 states the premedical (undergraduate) education requirement. You must also show your physical and mental fitness for medical practice. Section 45:9-8 adds the requirement of two years of postgraduate medical training. New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners rules add the medical licensing exam requirement discussed below. Our attorneys can help you address any of these requirements in addition to your NBME / USMLE issues.
New Jersey Medical Licensing Exam Requirements
New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners Administrative Rule 13:35-3.1 provides that the USMLE is the standard licensing exam required and approved for licensure. The same rule requires that candidates complete all step exams within seven years of passing the Step 1 exam. The same rule offers candidates up to five attempts at each step exam, one more than the four-attempts limit the USMLE imposes. Unlike other state medical boards, the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners does not recognize the NBME or FLEX exams as standard exams satisfying the medical licensing requirement, although the rules imply that special exceptions may be possible. You should thus expect that you will have to resolve your USMLE issues with our skilled representation to obtain your New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners license.
Potential USMLE Issues Affecting New Jersey Medical Licensure
The good news is that you are not alone in facing USMLE issues, USMLE officials anticipate the issues you are likely facing, and we can invoke the USMLE adjudication processes or conduct informal advocacy and negotiation to help you favorably resolve those issues. The presumably common and clearly foreseeable issues you may be experiencing that USMLE officials anticipate include: (1) ensuring that you are able to qualify for the exam and maintain your qualification; (2) ensuring that you are able to pass the exam without exhausting allowed retakes; (3) avoiding or overcoming irregular behavior charges alleging your cheating; (4) avoiding or overcoming disqualification for anomalous performance in your exam score and answers; (5) avoiding or overcoming an invalidated score due to suspected advance exam question access; and (6) gaining additional retake opportunities due to extenuating circumstances. The following discussion addresses each of these six issues while showing how we may be able to help you address them.
USMLE Qualifying Issues for New Jersey Physicians
You must qualify for the USMLE and remain qualified if you are to obtain New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners licensure. USMLE officials implement exam qualification requirements stated in the USMLE Bulletin of Information. The Bulletin serves as the USMLE's assurance as to the terms and conditions for your exam administration. You may have qualified initially but had events intervene on which USMLE officials revoke your qualification, due for instance to USMLE scrutiny of your application or due to challenges you encounter in your medical school and graduate education programs. Disqualifying events could trigger any of the following issues at any time:
- USMLE discovery of false representations or misleading omissions suggesting credential fraud on your USMLE application;
- USMLE discovery of fake, altered, or uncertified documents from unapproved sources, in your USMLE application;
- USMLE discovery of contradictions or inconsistencies between your USMLE application statements and your supporting documentation, suggesting credential fraud;
- USMLE notice of challenges to your medical school's accreditation or approval;
- USMLE notice that you have failed medical school courses, failed to progress to the next stage of the program, or taken leave from or withdrawn from school;
- USMLE discovery that you face medical school or medical residency program disciplinary charges and sanctions, or residency program dismissal or nonrenewal;
- your failure or inability to provide USMLE officials with documentation of your U.S. citizenship or other lawful residency status, including your loss of lawful residency status;
- USMLE discovery of your disqualifying criminal conviction, or your failure to authorize the criminal history check, or failure of the appropriate agency to supply the requested history check.
How We Help Address USMLE Qualification Issues
Our appearance on your behalf can alone go a long way toward resolving qualification, application, and documentation issues. Our professional reputation and relationships, and the skills we exercise to work effectively with the involved officials, often garner the cooperation and action you need. We can also invoke medical school procedures to resolve lingering disciplinary or academic progress issues and update or correct transcripts to reflect their resolution. We can work with court clerks and apply to judges to obtain the updated or corrected judgments and orders resolving your criminal history issues. We can work with immigration, naturalization, and other government officials to resolve your other qualification issues, all while keeping the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners informed of our progress toward resolving USMLE issues.
New Jersey Medical Licensing Exam Attempt Limits
The above discussion briefly mentions both the USMLE's four attempts limit and the willingness of the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners to extend the permissible attempts from four to five. Exhausting your allowed number of attempts on any of the USMLE's three step exams is obviously a significant issue. Having no more remaining retakes can mean disqualification from the USMLE exam, USMLE notice to the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners of your disqualification, and Board of Medical Examiners action rejecting your license application and closing your file. Without available retake attempts, you could lose your ability to obtain a New Jersey medical license.
How We Help with USMLE Retake Limit Issues
Our role is not to offer you USMLE preparation advice, services, or resources. You have likely already availed yourself of those aids and have access to additional support. Our role is instead to ensure that you have a continuing opportunity to pass the exam, if necessary by acquiring additional retake opportunities. In that respect, the USMLE implements an extenuating circumstances policy. The policy permits us to notify USMLE officials that you experienced an illness, injury, or other emergency preventing you from attempting the exam for which you registered, counting against your retake limit, or that you failed an exam due to those emergency circumstances. Our showing may induce USMLE officials to exercise their discretion to grant you an additional attempt. We can also update New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners officials regarding our diligent efforts and your substantial probability of prevailing so that those officials keep your license application file open.
New Jersey Physician USMLE Irregular Behavior Issues
You also face the risk of accusations that you violated USMLE exam rules or cheated on the exam. Other examinees have the obligation to report suspected cheating, as do test center staff members, exam proctors, and USMLE administrators. Cheating allegations can also come from medical school classmates, medical residency colleagues, or anyone else familiar with your exam preparation and conduct. If USMLE officials receive credible reports of rules violations, they may invoke the organization's irregular behavior procedure. USMLE policy defines irregular behavior as examinee actions that may “compromise [exam] validity, integrity, or security,” illustrating that definition with these examples:
- you misrepresent your exam qualification or alter or fabricate qualification documents;
- you register for an exam administration when ineligible or after exam disqualification;
- you try to have someone take your exam for you or you try to take the exam for someone else;
- you seek, gain, or share confidential exam questions or answers, before, during, or after the exam;
- you disobey test center staff members or proctors, interfere with their exam administration, or insult or harass them;
- you violate test center exam instructions and conditions, including using or attempting to use unauthorized materials or devices;
- you remove exam questions from the exam room or photograph or copy exam questions in the exam room;
- you tell licensing officials you passed the exam when you did not, that you are qualified for the exam when you are not, or that you have available retake attempts when you do not; or
- you fail or refuse to cooperate with USMLE exam investigators or obstruct their investigation.
How We Address USMLE Irregular Behavior Charges
If USMLE investigators contact you requesting your information related to suspected cheating, retain us immediately to help you respond truthfully, accurately, and with appropriate documentation of your innocence. Beware any misstatements to investigators. The USMLE may construe errors, omissions, or inconsistencies as obstructing the investigation. Our intervention may help you avoid formal charges. Otherwise, the USMLE notice that you receive with irregular behavior charges will offer the Office of the USMLE Secretariat's adjudication process. Our attorneys can help you invoke that process, where we can present your explanation and evidence, and advocate and negotiate for charge dismissal. If you have already lost your Office of the USMLE Secretariat hearing, we may be able to obtain a reversal by supplying supplemental information and documentation. We may also be able to appeal or negotiate special alternative relief through general counsel. We will also keep New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners officials informed with an eye toward keeping your license application file open.
New Jersey Physician USMLE Anomalous Performance Issues
Another issue you could face is that your USMLE step exam performance is so poor that USMLE officials believe it to be below the normal distribution for examinees with the requisite medical education and earnest intentions to put forward reasonable exam effort. In that instance, you may receive the USMLE's anomalous performance notice. USMLE officials analyze exam performance to disqualify examinees whose attempts are futile or in bad faith, such as to gain access to confidential exam questions. If you receive an anomalous performance notice stating that USMLE officials have disqualified you from further exam attempts, that notice may also reach the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners, resulting in rejection of your medical license application.
How We Address USMLE Anomalous Performance
USMLE officials do not offer an adjudication process through which to directly challenge an anomalous performance notice. USMLE officials instead hope to keep their analyses and other exam security measures and exam questions confidential. But we may be able to communicate, negotiate, and advocate with USMLE officials informally, effectively gaining a hearing to present your explanation for the anomalies, if you have one. Some examinees realize immediately that they forgot to answer exam sections or mismarked correct answers in a way that would score as incorrect. Other examinees may have had a medical or mental event interfering with their full effort. We can advocate with USMLE officials that you have the requisite medical education and training to pass the exam and that you can give earnest effort if given a retake opportunity. We will also keep New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners officials informed in the expectation that they will keep your file open.
New Jersey Physician USMLE Invalidated Score Issues
While a very low score is one concern, a very high score can be another concern. You would think that acing the USMLE would be to your advantage, not your disadvantage. But if your exam score far exceeds the upper limits of the normal distribution, USMLE officials may presume that you got the questions in advance of the exam. USMLE exams use previous exam questions while introducing new test questions. If you answered all previous exam questions but missed new test questions, that pattern may further suggest that you got the previous exam questions in advance of your exam. USMLE officials follow an invalidated score policy in these instances, withholding your passing score and potentially disqualifying you from the exam while notifying the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners.
How We Address a USMLE Invalidated Score
As in the case of irregular behavior charges, the Office of the USMLE Secretariat's notice to you of an invalidated score should make the USMLE adjudication process available to you. We can help you invoke the process, present your explanation and any exonerating evidence, and present a case for your good character and rule compliance to counter the inference of cheating. We can also keep the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners informed so that its officials do not reject your application and close your file.
New Jersey Medical Board Response to USMLE Issues
You can see from the above discussion that timely and helpful communications to New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners officials may forestall the rejection of your license application and closure of your file. Yet Board of Medical Examiners officials have statutory and regulatory duties to act on license applications. Their protocols may require that they reject your application even when you have a substantial probability of resolving your USMLE issues and qualifying for licensure. You may receive notice that the Board has finally and firmly rejected your application.
Our Role Addressing New Jersey Medical Board Response
If New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners officials reject your license application prematurely, constitutional due process and statutory assurances should grant you a hearing to review and reserve that erroneous decision. We can help you identify and invoke the review process, while presenting your best case for relief from the erroneous decision, with the goal of reopening your application file.
New Jersey Administrative Review Procedures
The New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners Law requires the Board of Medical Examiners to adopt due process procedures complying with the state's Administrative Procedure Act, for applicants aggrieved by a Board decision. New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners Administrative Rule 13:35-2B.6 expressly incorporates the state's Administrative Procedure Act protections, promising an administrative hearing. We can help you invoke, prepare for, and attend that hearing to present your best case for relief. Indeed, we may have resolved your USMLE issues by the time of the scheduled hearing, making the best possible case for relief.
Premier USMLE Defense in New Jersey
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available across New Jersey to help you address and favorably resolve your New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners licensing matter involving USMLE issues. Our skilled and experienced attorneys have helped hundreds of students, graduates, and other professionals in New Jersey and nationwide with their licensing issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain our premier attorneys.
