International medical graduates (IMGs) pursuing practice in New Jersey can face ECFMG, USMLE, or New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners issues. As a New Jersey IMG, qualifying for U.S. medical practice is not easy. Whether you are located in Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Lakewood, Edison, Woodbridge, Toms River, Hamilton Township, Trenton, Clifton, Cherry Hill, Brick, Camden, Bayonne, Passaic, or any other New Jersey location, the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team is available to provide the skilled and experienced attorney representation that you need to favorably resolve your New Jersey IMG issues. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to preserve and protect your investment in your international medical education and New Jersey medical practice.
The Benefits of New Jersey IMG Licensing
New Jersey is a great place to practice medicine. The above cities and towns are of good size, with stable and friendly populations in need of your skilled medical services. New Jersey has a sophisticated healthcare system to support your practice and offer you substantial employment opportunities and job security. 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 are the largest among many other fine New Jersey hospitals, supporting your medical practice and offering abundant employment opportunities. You have a lot to look forward to as an IMG seeking a New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners license.
The Risk of New Jersey IMG Licensing Issues
Your ECFMG, USMLE, or New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiner issues, though, put your valuable New Jersey medical license, employment, and practice at risk. If you do not handle those issues responsibly, with the effective representation of our skilled attorneys, you could lose your ability to practice in New Jersey. If you cannot qualify for New Jersey medical licensure and practice, you won't likely qualify in other states. If you cannot practice medicine, your international medical education may be largely worthless despite your enormous investment of time, trouble, effort, and expense. Let us help you favorably resolve your New Jersey IMG licensing issues. You have everything for which you have studied and worked at risk.
New Jersey IMG Requirements
To get a New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners license, an international medical graduate must meet ECFMG, USMLE, and New Jersey medical licensing requirements. Issues with either the ECFMG, USMLE, or New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners could prevent your licensure. We can help you address and favorably resolve issues with any of these three entities whose requirements you must meet. Below is an outline of each organization's requirements, out of which you may face issues.
New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners License Requirements
New Jersey Statutes Section 45:9-6 requires anyone practicing medicine in the state to hold a New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners license. The same statute sets forth your licensure requirements, including accurate completion of the application form, good moral character, and a degree from an approved medical school. Other requirements, found in related New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners statutes, include passing the USMLE and completing two years of graduate medical education. Like many U.S. states, New Jersey follows the World Directory of Medical Schoolsapproved school list. If your international medical school is in the World Directory as ECFMG approved, then the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners should approve your international medical education as meeting state licensure requirements. New Jersey is also among the fewer states accepting ECFMG Fifth Pathway approval of a jointly issued international medical degree in partnership with a U.S. medical school.
As to your U.S. or Canada medical residency, the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners requires that you and other international medical graduates complete two years. Medical licensing boards in other states require between one and three years of graduate medical education, if they require any GME at all, to license international medical graduates. Your other New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners requirement of good moral character involves showing that you have not suffered a criminal conviction of a felony, crime of gross misdemeanor, or crime of moral turpitude, which are the three disqualifying convictions New Jersey Statutes Section 45:9-6.2 lists. You must also show your physical and mental fitness for medical practice.
ECFMG Requirements for New Jersey IMGs
Fulfilling your New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners requirements as an international medical graduate requires ECFMG certification. ECFMG plays two main roles: both (1) approving your international medical school as meeting requirements that most U.S. state medical boards will accept while also (2) certifying that you have obtained a degree from your school and have the U.S. citizenship or immigrant visa to complete your graduate medical education and practice medicine in the U.S. ECFMG helps IMGs to obtain a visa if they are not a U.S. citizen. To complete their certification function, ECFMG officials use the organization's Electronic Portfolio of International Credentials (EPIC) service, requiring you to submit your transcript, citizenship or other lawful resident documentation, and other credentials. If the EPIC online portfolio does not reflect your complete and accurate documentation meeting ECFMG requirements and is instead incomplete or reflects contradictions and misrepresentation, ECFMG will not certify you, and you will not qualify for a New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners license. Let us help if you face ECFMG issues affecting your New Jersey IMG licensure.
USMLE Requirements for New Jersey IMGs
New Jersey IMGs must also meet USMLE requirements both to qualify to sit for the Step 3 exam and to receive a validated, passing score. As indicated above, if you fail to obtain ECFMG certification through your EPIC portfolio, the USMLE won't generally approve your application to sit for the Step 3 exam. But even if you do obtain ECFMG certification, your USMLE application must be complete and accurate, without any misrepresentations or omissions. When you prepare for and take the USMLE Step 3 exam, and after the exam, you must also comply with USMLE behavioral standards. Those standards require that you avoiding soliciting, using, or distributing confidential USMLE questions in your preparations or after the exam, that you not use unauthorized materials or devices during the exam, and that you not use an impostor to take the exam for you, among forms of cheating. Meet these USMLE rules and requirements, or you will not get a validated, passing score to meet the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners exam requirements.
New Jersey IMG Licensing Issues
The above discussion shows you the requirements an international medical graduate must meet to qualify for New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners licensure. Now consider the pitfalls and problems you may have meeting those requirements, whether with the ECFMG, USMLE, or New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners. We can help you with any of these issues, before any of these three organizations.
New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners IMG Issues
Your New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners issues may begin with showing that you obtained ECFMG certification. If you have obtained ECFMG certification, the Board of Medical Examiners should not dispute your international medical school's approval, your graduation from that school in good standing, or your citizenship or immigration status. If you have any of those issues with the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners, let us help you show the Board that your ECFMG certification was sufficient to establish those credentials. You must also show the Board of Medical Examiners that you passed the USMLE Step 3 exam with a validated score. Again, we can help if you did pass the Step 3 exam but have documentation issues with the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners.
Your bigger issues with the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners may instead be with the Board's two-year medical residency requirements or with character and fitness issues. Medical residency issues sometimes arise out of simple documentation issues, getting residency directors to complete and submit appropriate certification of your completed residency. However, residency issues may also arise from disputes with the program over your residency hours or performance, leading to a withheld assurance of completion. We can help you address those issues, too. Character and fitness issues may involve your substance abuse, addiction, or dependency, questions over your criminal conviction and whether it meets the statutory requirements for disqualification, or simply your mental or physical fitness in the face of evidence of illness or disability. Let us help you make the case for your mental and physical fitness and good moral character.
New Jersey IMG ECFMG Issues
The ECFMG issues you may face begin with assuring the ECFMG recognized your international medical school during your dates of attendance and graduation. You might think that issue would be clear enough. But the ECFMG is constantly approving new international medical schools, revoking approval of currently approved schools, and taking other actions that may call approval into question. IMGs do have issues proving to ECFMG that they attended and graduated from an approved international medical school. We can help you address those issues.
Your other ECFMG issue may be that although the ECFMG recognizes your international medical school, it does not accept your documentation that you graduated from that school. Your international medical school's registrar may not have updated your transcript with your course completions and graduation. Or you or the registrar may not have provided original authenticated documentation with seals, attestations, or signatures that the ECFMG requires. Or the ECFMG may simply have made administrative errors in processing your EPIC portfolio for approval. You may alternatively have similar EPIC submission and authentication issues with your citizenship or immigration papers, or you may even have a dispute keeping you from obtaining the lawful immigration status. We can help you with these documentation and lawful residency issues.
One other ECFMG issue may arise if your EPIC portfolio or other communications appear to be deliberately false or misleading in your attempt to subvert ECFMG processes. ECFMG maintains Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior that enable it to divert, delay, and deny your application for ECFMG certification for documentation and communication issues it believes were efforts to mislead and establish credentials you do not hold. Let us help you with those issues.
New Jersey IMG USMLE Issues
The pitfalls and problems you may face with the USMLE and its Step 3 exam are generally twofold. You may, on the one hand, have issues with your application and communication to USMLE officials qualifying for and scheduling or rescheduling your exam. USMLE rules in its Bulletin of Information require your submissions and communications to be accurate and non-misleading. USMLE officials may construe contradictions, alterations, or omissions in your representations to be deliberate efforts to subvert its processes. Or you may simply not be able to convince USMLE officials that you qualify to sit for the exam because of incomplete or unauthenticated documentation. We can help you with these USMLE submission and qualification issues.
Your bigger USMLE issue, as an international medical graduate seeking New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners licensure, may be that the USMLE suspects you of Step 3 exam cheating. USMLE's Bulletin of Information, setting for the the organization's rules, prohibit common forms of cheating including asking an impostor to take your exam, using unauthorized materials for your exam, threatening or disobeying proctors, and even recalling and sharing confidential exam questions after your exam. USMLE officials may delay or invalidate your passing test score, applying ECFMG Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior. Let us help you defend and defeat any such charges.
Procedural Protections for New Jersey IMGs
Fortunately, you have constitutional due process rights and other legal rights that our attorneys can help you enforce to move your licensing matter forward toward New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners approval. Under New Jersey Statutes Section 45:9-22.9 and related statutes, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners must follow the state's Administrative Procedure Act in all its actions, including when investigating and denying licensure applications. New Jersey administrative procedures ensure that you received fair notice of the Board of Medical Examiner's action and an opportunity to contest that action before a qualified and impartial official. The ECFMG's Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior offer similar protections if you face ECFMG or USMLE issues rather than Board of Medical Examiners issues.
These procedures give our attorneys the chance to obtain prompt, full, and detailed descriptions of any allegations against you. We can also invoke these procedures to answer the allegations, setting forth your exonerating evidence and legal rights and defenses. We can invoke the available conciliation conferences and communication lines to advocate and negotiate for your prompt approval and dismissal of any misconduct charges. If ECFMG, USMLE, or the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners persist in denying your approval, we can request and represent you at the available formal hearing, presenting your witnesses and cross-examining adverse witnesses. If you have already lost your hearing, we can take available appeals and, if you have already lost your appeals, even seek court relief.
Premier New Jersey IMG Representation
If you are a New Jersey international medical graduate with licensing issues you have been unable to promptly resolve, the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team is available across the state for your skilled and effective representation. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now.
