You've invested a great deal in your effort to complete your medical education and qualify for medical practice in North Carolina. You have every right and reason to expect that substantial reward of practicing in a vital and beautiful state with a great healthcare system. Your expectation of qualifying for a medical license from the North Carolina Medical Board is laudable and reasonable. However your NBME / USMLE issues may prevent your North Carolina medical licensure and practice for failing to satisfy the state's medical licensing examination requirement.
Don't lose your investment in your medical career due to medical licensing exam issues. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team to address and favorably resolve those issues. Our skilled and experienced attorneys are available in Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, Cary, Wilmington, High Point, Concord, Asheville, Greenville, Gastonia, Jacksonville, Apex, and across North Carolina to address your NBME / USMLE issues and related North Carolina Medical Board concerns. Let us protect your North Carolina medical practice rewards. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now.
Rewards of North Carolina Medical Practice
The rewards of North Carolina medical practice begin with the state's fine hospitals and other medical care facilities. Duke University Hospital, Vidant Medical Center, Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center, UNC Medical Center, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center, Mission Hospital-Asheville, and New Hanover Regional Medical Center, among other leading institutions, offer valuable employment, practice, and continuing education opportunities. North Carolina is also a great state in which to live, raise a family, and enjoy sports, recreation, the arts, and the cultural scene. Don't lose those opportunities. Retain us to help you resolve your NBME / USMLE issues frustrating your North Carolina Medical Board licensure.
North Carolina Medical Licensing Authority
Section 90.2 of the North Carolina Medical Practice Act, codified at Chapter 90 of the North Carolina statutes on allied health occupations, establishes the North Carolina Medical Board to regulate medical practice in the state. The Act's Section 90-5.1 authorizes the North Carolina Medical Board to develop and implement licensing regulations to ensure the safe practice of medicine. The Act's Section 90-18 treats the unauthorized practice of medicine in the state without a license as a Class 1 criminal misdemeanor. Another section authorizes the Medical Board to obtain a civil court injunction to prevent such practice or other violations of the Medical Practice Act. You must obtain a North Carolina Medical Board unrestricted license for the long term, full time medical practice in the state, once your graduate medical residency under supervision of a licensed physician concludes. That requirement means you must resolve your NBME / USMLE exam issues.
North Carolina Medical License Application Requirements
A North Carolina Medical Board rule codified at 21 North Carolina Administrative Code 32B.1303 requires physicians seeking a license in the state to apply to the Medical Board on the forms and with the information and documentation that the Medical Board requires. The application requires substantial additional information and documentation beyond the statutory requirements for licensure, including identification and proof of U.S. citizenship or lawful residency status. False or misleading statements on your application, or misleading omissions, can lead to credential fraud charges and denial of your application. Inconsistencies between your information and your documentation can lead to charges of deliberate misrepresentation. You should be especially careful to accurately represent the status of your NBME / USMLE issues. Concealing or minimizing those issues could lead to credential fraud concerns. Let us help you accurately represent the status of those issues and make any amendments or updates to your application to ensure that it remains accurate and complete.
North Carolina Medical Licensure General Requirements
Section 90-9.1 of North Carolina's Medical Practice Act articulates the general licensure requirements for a North Carolina Medical Board license to practice medicine in the state. Those general requirements include your graduation from an approved medical school, your good moral character, and your passage of an approved medical licensing exam. A one year medical residency is an additional requirement, extended to two years for international medical graduates. The Act's Section 90-11 further authorizes a criminal background check to ensure that candidates meet the good moral character requirement and do not have disqualifying convictions. We can assist you with meeting any general requirement for licensure in addition to helping you address and resolve your NBME / USMLE issue currently delaying or threatening your successful application.
North Carolina Medical Licensing Exam Requirements
Section 90-10.1 of North Carolina's Medical Practice Act details the specific medical licensing exams, the passage of which qualifies you for North Carolina Medical Board licensure. Those exams include the FLEX, NBME, and USMLE and any other exam that the Medical Board by administrative regulation deems equivalent. Currently, you should expect to satisfy the medical licensing exam requirement most likely by resolving your NBME / USMLE issues. You may lack other reasonable options. The North Carolina Medical Board's website indicates that the Medical Board has adopted a rule limiting your number of permitted USMLE step exam retakes to three attempts rather than the USMLE's permitted four attempts. Expect to have to favorably resolve your USMLE issues to obtain North Carolina Medical Board licensure. Let us help you do so.
Potential USMLE Issues Affecting North Carolina Medical Licensure
Medical students and graduates naturally have certain issues arise in the course of their pursuit of medical licensing examination passage. Medical licensing exams are an extraordinary challenge, producing high failure rates while triggering other issues. Your NBME / USMLE issues should not entirely surprise you, although they rightly concern you, threatening your North Carolina Medical Board licensure. Fortunately, USMLE procedures in many instances anticipate examinee issues. USMLE officials maintain adjudication processes we can invoke on your behalf in some instances, while in other cases we can effectively pursue informal advocacy and negotiation. Foreseeable NBME / USMLE issues you may encounter, with which we can help you, include:
- qualifying for the exam and remaining qualified;
- passing the exam without running out of permitted retakes;
- avoiding irregular behavior charges for suspected cheating;
- avoiding disqualification for anomalous performance;
- overcoming an invalidated score; and
- invoking extenuating circumstances for additional retakes.
USMLE Qualifying Issues for North Carolina Physicians
Qualifying for the NBME / USMLE so that you can sit for it and pass it, to obtain North Carolina Medical Board licensure, can present surprising challenges. USMLE officials must ensure that you continuously meet every exam qualification requirement stated in the USMLE Bulletin of Information. Gaining an initial qualification is one thing while remaining qualified through further scrutiny of your application, academic progress, professional fitness, and exam performance is another thing. Disqualification can arise at any time that USMLE officials suspect false application information, medical school or residency issues, exam rule violations, criminal convictions, or other disqualifying grounds. Events can trigger any of the following qualification issues:
- your USMLE application suggests false statements or misleading omissions amounting to credential fraud;
- your USMLE application is missing documentation or includes unauthenticated documentation from improper sources;
- your USMLE application's documentation shows omissions, contradictions, or inconsistencies suggesting concealment;
- your medical school loses accreditation or approval;
- you do not satisfactorily progress in medical school through the academic program or you face disciplinary action;
- your medical residency program dismisses you or refuses to renew your program;
- your claimed citizenship or lawful residency status lacks confirming documentation or you lose residency status;
- you suffer a disqualifying criminal conviction or fail to authorize a history check, or an agency fails to supply it.
How We Help Address USMLE Qualification Issues
Our attorneys have the skill, experience, reputation, and relationships to work well with medical school, residency, immigration, court, USMLE, and other officials to favorably resolve the above lingering or new qualification issues. We may need to work with your medical school's registrar to update, correct, and supply new transcripts, after invoking school discipline and academic progress procedures. We may need to help you complete immigration materials or obtain citizenship or identification documentation from hospitals, secretaries of state, county clerks, or U.S. immigration, naturalization, or passport services. Or we may need to invoke court procedures and communicate with court clerks to update and correct judgments, orders, convictions, pardons, expungements, or other court records. At the same time, we can communicate with North Carolina Medical Board officials to inform them of our diligent efforts and to keep your licensing application file open.
North Carolina Medical Licensing Exam Attempt Limits
Passing each USMLE step exam within the applicable retake attempt limits can also raise issues preventing you from obtaining North Carolina Medical Board licensure. As mentioned above, while the USMLE maintains a four-attempts retake limit, the North Carolina Medical Board has adopted a rule limiting you to just three retake attempts for each USMLE step exam. Your many other school, professional, and personal obligations may prevent you from adequate preparation, or you may find other unexpected challenges passing a step exam. USMLE retake attempts anticipate your difficulties. But if you exhaust all three attempts that the North Carolina Medical Board permits, you may find yourself unable to meet the examination requirement for licensure.
How We Help with USMLE Retake Limit Issues
Our role is not to help you prepare for USMLE step exams. You have other substantial support and resources to do so. But we may be able to help you avoid encountering the North Carolina Medical Board's three-attempts limit. USMLE officials maintain an extenuating circumstances policy that permits you to not count as an attempt, a scheduled exam that you missed for emergency reasons, or an exam you attempted under emergency circumstances that prevented you from giving reasonable effort to the attempt. The USMLE's extenuating circumstances policy, though, requires your prompt and convincing communication. USMLE officials have considerable discretion to grant or deny an extra attempt. Let us make that application or, if you have already lost your request, move for USMLE reconsideration based on additional documentation.
North Carolina Physician USMLE Irregular Behavior Issues
Complying with all USMLE exam rules while avoiding cheating charges may be another issue you face in showing the North Carolina Medical Board that you have met or can meet its medical licensing examination requirement. USMLE officials, test center staff, and exam proctors are all on the lookout for exam cheating or other rules violations. Examinees likewise have duties to report observed cheating. You may also face allegations from other sources including medical school officials or medical residency supervisors or colleagues. USMLE officials enforce what they call an irregular behavior policy to punish cheating, defining irregular behavior as examinee actions that could “compromise the validity, integrity, or security” of exam procedure. The policy provides these irregular behavior examples:
- false statements about exam qualifications or falsified qualification documents;
- exam registration when ineligible or retake attempts after disqualification;
- having another take the exam for you or taking the exam for another, or requests or attempts to do the same;
- soliciting or sharing confidential exam materials including disclosing exam questions to others after the exam;
- disobeying or harassing exam proctors or violating exam rules and instructions during administration;
- bringing unauthorized materials or devices into the exam room or attempting to do so;
- removing exam materials from the exam room or photographing or copying exam materials in the exam room;
- misrepresenting to licensing officials or others your exam status or passing or failing scores; and
- refusing to cooperate with USMLE exam investigators and other officials involved in an investigation.
How We Address USMLE Irregular Behavior Charges
We can help you address USMLE irregular behavior charges. If a USMLE investigator contacts you, we can help you supply timely, truthful, accurate, and well documented answers and explanations. We can also invoke the Office of the USMLE Secretariat's adjudication process described in the notice of irregular behavior charges. We can gather your exonerating evidence to present to USMLE officials at interviews, conferences, and hearings. If you have already lost your hearing, we may be able to pursue an appeal or negotiate alternative special relief through a general counsel's office. Our efforts may head off formal charges, gain the release of a withheld passing score, or requalify you to take the exam or attempt a retake. We can also communicate with North Carolina Medical Board officials to ensure them that we are diligently pursuing relief and that you retain a substantial probability of fulfilling the medical licensing exam requirement.
North Carolina Physician USMLE Anomalous Performance Issues
Another issue that can arise involves your exam responses and scores. USMLE officials maintain an anomalous performance policy to address aberrant exam responses and results. If your score falls well below the normal distribution for qualified examinees giving reasonable effort, you leave portions of the exam questions unanswered, or your responses show other anomalies, then USMLE officials may invoke the anomalous performance policy to disqualify you based on the presumption that you lack the education or are unwilling to make the requisite effort. You may lose the ability to retake the exam. USMLE officials may also communicate your disqualification to North Carolina Medical Board officials who may endeavor to deny your license application and close your file.
How We Address USMLE Anomalous Performance
USMLE officials do not offer you an adjudication process for anomalous performance, presumably because adjudication could reveal the methods USMLE officials use to analyze responses or may destroy other exam confidentiality. You will not have a means of challenging your very low score or checking your responses to confirm missed sections of unanswered questions. Yet you may have an explanation for the exam anomalies, such as that you mistakenly failed to answer sections of the exam or entered correct answers in a mistaken pattern. We can help you present any such explanation and other evidence of your good character and qualifications to USMLE officials to regain qualification to pursue a retake attempt. We can also communicate with North Carolina Medical Board officials that you are qualifying or have qualified for a retake so that they do not reject your application and close your file.
North Carolina Physician USMLE Invalidated Score Issues
While a very low exam score may lead to anomalous performance disqualification, a very high or perfect score may also trigger USMLE exam issues interfering with your North Carolina Medical Board licensure. USMLE officials maintain an invalidated score policy that withholds a passing score and may disqualify the examinee from retake attempts if analysis of the exam responses suggests advance access to exam questions and answers. You could be in trouble if your exam score falls well above the normal distribution for highly qualified examinees giving maximal effort. USMLE analysts may also detect that you scored very high or perfectly on previously used questions while scoring low or average on new questions, suggesting that you had advanced question access. USMLE officials may simultaneously notify North Carolina Medical Board officials of your invalidated score and exam disqualification.
How We Address a USMLE Invalidated Score
Your notice of an invalidated score grants you access to the Office of the USMLE Secretariat's adjudication process. As in the case of irregular behavior charges, we can invoke that process to present your exonerating evidence to USMLE officials in communications and at interviews, conferences, and hearings. If you have already lost your hearing, we may be able to move for reconsideration based on new evidence and more thorough documentation. We may also be able to appeal the sanction or negotiate special alternative relief through the USMLE's general counsel's office or outside retained counsel. Let us simultaneously communicate with North Carolina Medical Board officials to avoid your license application's rejection based on the USMLE notice of an invalidated score.
North Carolina Medical Board Response to USMLE Issues
North Carolina Medical Board officials have the statutory and regulatory obligation to act diligently on pending license applications. If an applicant's file indicates that the applicant does not qualify and cannot qualify for licensure, then Medical Board officials may reject the application, notify the candidate, and close the file, as a matter of protocol. Medical Board officials may not be aware or may not trust that you have avenues for relief available to you that could favorably resolve your NBME / USMLE issues.
Our Role Addressing North Carolina Medical Board Response
If North Carolina Medical Board officials deny your license application and close your file prematurely, we can help you invoke the available administrative review procedures to reopen the file and preserve your application while we work to resolve your NBME / USMLE issues. Do not attempt to present your case for relief on your own, without our skilled assistance. Let your first attempt at administrative review be your best attempt so that we do not have to move for reconsideration, appeal, or pursue other alternative relief.
North Carolina Administrative Review Procedures
Section 90-14.1 of the North Carolina Medical Practice Act provides for a full Medical Board hearing at the request of any applicant whom Board officials decide to deny a license. Once you retain us, we can timely notify Medical Board officials that you are invoking your administrative review rights. We can then prepare and make your presentation before the full Medical Board. And do not despair if you have already lost your full Medical Board hearing. The same Section 90-14.1 further provides for an appeal to a North Carolina state superior court by any applicant aggrieved by the full Medical Board's decision not to issue the license. We can help you evaluate and pursue a superior court appeal to reverse an erroneous Medical Board decision.
Premier USMLE Defense in North Carolina
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available across North Carolina to help you favorably resolve your medical licensing matter involving NBME / USMLE issues. Our highly qualified attorneys have helped hundreds of students, graduates, and other professionals in North Carolina and nationwide with their licensing issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain our premier attorneys.
