International medical graduates (IMGs) may have choices about the U.S. state in which they intend to practice medicine. If you chose Georgia as your practice base, you made a great decision. However, issues with the ECFMG, USMLE, or Georgia Composite Medical Board can derail your state licensure and, with it, your opportunity for a Georgia medical practice. For the best possible outcome to your Georgia medical licensing issue, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team. Our highly qualified attorneys can help you, whether you live or wish to practice in Atlanta, Augusta, Columbus, Savannah, South Fulton, Macon, Athens, Sandy Springs, Roswell, Johns Creek, Warner Robins, Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Albany, Marietta, Stonecrest, Brookhaven, or another Georgia location. We do professional license defense with the necessary strategy, quality, and skill. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form for the best outcome for your Georgia IMG licensing issue.
The Benefits of Georgia IMG Licensure
You chose to pursue a Georgia Composite Medical Board license because you knew the benefits of a medical practice in Georgia. The state's diverse economy, attractive large, medium-sized, and small cities and rural areas, and highly sophisticated healthcare system with some of the finest medical facilities and educational programs in the world makes the state a favored destination for international medical graduates. Grady Memorial Hospital, Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center, Emory University Hospital, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, Atrium Health Navicent Medical Center, Northside Hospital Atlanta, Wellstar Kennestone Hospital, and other outstanding Georgia medical facilities with state-of-the-art equipment can offer abundant medical jobs, secure employment, and valuable hospital privileges for your own medical practice. You know the financial, professional, and personal value of a Georgia medical practice. Let us help you realize an appropriate return on your educational investment.
The Impact of Georgia IMG Licensing Issues
While you know the investment you made in your international medical education and the return you expect from a Georgia medical practice, you should also recognize the impact that your ECFMG, USMLE, or Georgia Composite Medical Board issues can have on realizing that return. You could lose everything for which you worked when pursuing your international medical degree and U.S. or Canadian medical residency. You must have a Georgia Composite Medical Board license to practice medicine in the state. You must generally have passed the USMLE Step 3 exam to get that license. And as an international medical graduate, you need ECFMG certification to sit for the USMLE Step 3 exam. Issues with any of those three organizations can derail your Georgia medical licensure. With all you have on the line, retain our premier attorneys as your best available representation.
Georgia IMG Licensing Requirements
As just indicated, to get a Georgia medical license as an international medical graduate, you need to resolve all outstanding issues not only with the Georgia Composite Medical Board but also with the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) and the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). Each of those organizations has different procedures setting forth different requirements. Here is an outline of those procedures and requirements. We can help you address any issues with any of these organizations or their requirements.
Georgia Composite Medical Board IMG Licensing Requirements
Georgia Code Section 43-34-8 authorizes the Georgia Composite Medical Board to grant or refuse a medical license to an international medical graduate or other candidate applying for a license. Another section of Georgia's Medical Practice Act, Georgia Code Section 43-34-26, requires anyone practicing in the state to first obtain the Board's license. The same statute lists the requirements you and other candidates must meet to obtain that medical license. They include good moral character, graduation from an approved medical school or three years of medical residency if not graduating from an approved medical school, and passage of the USMLE Step 3 exam.
Other statutes and rules further define those Georgia Composite Medical Board licensure requirements. The Georgia Composite Medical Board approves international medical schools recognized by the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA) or the Medical Board of California. Other state medical boards rely on the California list, although more state boards rely on approval from the ECFMG World Directory of Medical Schools. Your international medical school needs to be on the NCFMEA or California approved lists. As to good moral character, Georgia Code Section 43-34-8 lists any felony conviction as disqualifying. You may also have to show your physical fitness and mental competence for practice where other circumstances call it into question. Let us help you prove that you meet any of these Composite Medical Board requirements, over which you will face a holdup and dispute.
ECFMG Requirements for Georgia IMGs
As an international medical graduate seeking Georgia Composite Medical Board licensure, you also need to meet ECFMG requirements to qualify for the USMLE Step 3 exam. You must submit a complete, accurate, and non-misleading Electronic Portfolio of International Credentials (EPIC). Your EPIC portfolio must include your international medical school transcript showing graduation and proof of your U.S. citizenship or lawful U.S. immigration status, such as a visa. Those documents must be in the form ECFMG requires to prove authenticity, whether signed, sealed, attested, or delivered. Only if you submit adequate documentation in the form and by the route the ECFMG requires, without suspicious anomalies, alterations, or contradictions, will the ECFMG certify you to sit for the USMLE Step 3 exam. And if you can't sit for the exam, you likely won't get Georgia Composite Medical Board licensure. We can help with ECFMG requirements disputes.
USMLE Requirements for Georgia IMGs
Georgia Rule & Regulation 360-2-.02 defines the examination requirements necessary for Georgia Composite Medical Board licensure, including the USMLE Step 3 exam. To get your Composite Medical Board license, you must, therefore, obtain ECFMG certification to take the USMLE Step 3 exam. You must also communicate with and apply to USMLE officials to schedule your Step 3 exam. Your USMLE communications and application must be accurate, complete, and non-misleading, or USMLE officials may deny you the opportunity to sit for the exam or may withhold your results. You must also comply with USMLE rules prohibiting cheating on the exam and solicitation, use, disclosure, or distribution of confidential exam questions. USMLE rules also have a retake limit that you may not exceed, although you may gain an excuse from attending an exam if you show extenuating circumstances. We can help you if you have been unable to meet USMLE requirements to the organization's satisfaction when you believe that you should.
Georgia IMG Issues and Problems
The above ECFMG, USMLE, and Georgia Composite Medical Board requirements can create multiple problems and issues for international medical graduates. An issue with ECFMG certification or USMLE qualification and validated passage will create an issue with Georgia Composite Medical Board licensure. We can help you address issues with any one, two, or all three of the organizations while helping you keep the issues from multiplying across organizations. Following are some common issues IMGs have with each organization and how we may be able to help.
Georgia Composite Medical Board IMG Issues
Georgia Composite Medical Board issues often arise out of prior ECFMG or USMLE issues. We address ECFMG and USMLE issues below. But if you resolve your ECFMG and USMLE issues, and the Georgia Composite Medical Board refuses to recognize that you have favorably resolved those issues, then let us help. We can get the appropriate documentation, attestation, or testimony while invoking the appropriate procedures to communicate and advocate it.
Otherwise, Georgia Composite Medical Board issues generally arise around good moral character and physical disability or mental fitness issues. Indeed, the Board itself lists these common issues: repeated USMLE Step 3 failures, outdated clinical practice beyond thirty months, disqualifying criminal convictions, impairment issues, disciplinary actions, malpractice incidents, and DEA restrictions. You have already seen above that Georgia Code Section 43-34-8 lists any felony conviction as disqualifying. If that is your issue, we may be able to work with your criminal defense attorney or the criminal court to show that the criminal court reversed your conviction, an appellate court overturned it, or it does not constitute a felony conviction. Other character issues, included or not included in the Board's own list, include substance abuse, addiction, or dependency, domestic violence restraining orders, disabling injury, illness or other condition, and mental illness. Let us help you resolve your character issues through documentation, negotiation, hearing, or appeal.
Georgia IMG ECFMG Issues
Your ECFMG issues, if any, may have to do with inconsistencies, contradictions, altered documents, or misleading or suspicious omissions in your EPIC portfolio or other communications with ECFMG officials. The ECFMG's Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior permit the organization to refuse certification if you subvert organization processes or mislead officials. Even if your submissions are accurate, complete, and non-misleading, the documents you submit may have come from the wrong source, passed through the wrong hands, or arrived in the wrong form without required signatures, seals, attestation, or other authentication. Documentation and authentication issues can be especially difficult for IMGs to resolve. Our attorneys can get your international medical school's attention or the attention of other officials who need to assist you by supplying the right updated documents in the right form to ECFMG for your certification.
Georgia IMG USMLE Issues
As the Georgia Composite Medical Board indicates, multiple USMLE Step 3 exam failures are one common issue. If you are out of retake opportunities but had extenuating circumstances for missing an exam, we may be able to help you gain another chance at a retake. Challenging a failing score for scorer inaccuracy is possible, but the USMLE indicates it rarely or never works. Otherwise, your USMLE issue is generally likely to involve a cheating allegation based on some observation or mistaken assessment by a testing center staff member, exam room proctor, fellow examinee, or other official. Soliciting confidential test questions when studying for the exam or distributing confidential exam questions after the exam are common violations. Bringing unauthorized devices or materials into the exam room, sharing answers with fellow examinees, disobeying exam instructions, threatening testing center staff, or taking materials out of the exam are other common USMLE rule violations. USMLE officials may withhold and invalidate your passing test score for these or other violations. Let us help challenge any such allegations to favorably resolve your USMLE issues.
Procedural Protections for Georgia IMGs
You have some procedural protections under Georgia Code Section 43-34-8 in the event that the Georgia Composite Medical Board denies you a medical license. That statute declares that your license denial is not a contested case under the Georgia Administrative Procedure Act. Otherwise, you would have substantial rights to notice, hearing, appeal, and court review. However, the same statute states that an applicant “shall be allowed to appear before the board if he or she so requests.” We can help you make that statutory request and board appearance with all appropriate documentation, attestation, and testimony to make your case. The ECFMG's Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior is clearer in providing due process protections of notice and hearing, for IMGs facing ECFMG certification issues. We may take your ECFMG matter before its Credentials Committee and, if you have already lost at that level, then appeal your loss to the ECFMG's Review Committee for Appeals.
Services We Can Perform
The services our highly skilled attorneys provide may include obtaining a detail of the allegations, answering those allegations with your legal defenses and factual evidence, meeting and negotiating with officials for dismissal of allegations and for your prompt approval, and invoking and attending your formal hearing to present your evidence and cross-examine adverse witnesses. If you have already lost your hearing, we can file your appeal and research, draft, and file your appeal brief. If a court review is available, we can pursue that route as well.
Georgia IMG Licensing Defense Available
The Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team is available to advocate in any location across Georgia or nationally for the best outcome to your Georgia IMG issues. Call 888.535.3686 today or complete this contact form now.
