International medical graduates facing issues with sitting for or obtaining their validated score from the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) have protective procedures available to them. If you have USMLE issues, don't sit idly by, letting those issues go unresolved and frustrating your U.S. state medical licensure. Instead, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team. Our highly skilled and effective attorneys can invoke USMLE protective procedures to help you address and favorably resolve your USMLE issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our prompt, sensitive, and strategic representation.
International Medical Graduates and the USMLE
International medical graduates must, like graduates of U.S. medical schools, take and pass the three steps of the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) to obtain a U.S. state medical board license. The USMLE is the exam that the Federation of State Medical Boards and National Board of Medical Examiners administer for state medical boards to rely on and accept as proof that the candidate is qualified for safe and competent medical practice. You won't generally get a U.S. state medical license without passing the USMLE. You may not also be able to practice medicine abroad in certain nations or for certain preferred employers without passing the USMLE, which is a gold standard for medical credentialing. Your whole medical career likely depends on your qualifying for and passing the USMLE with a validated score. That's why the USMLE provides protective procedures we can invoke on your behalf to resolve your USMLE issues.
USMLE Standards Implicating Protective Procedures
Because the USMLE's role is to protect the public against the unqualified medical practice, USMLE officials must set minimum standards for international medical graduates and other examinees to meet, qualify to sit for the exam and to pass the exam. You must, for instance, generally obtain Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) certification to qualify to sit for the USMLE Step 3 exam. You must also comply with USMLE test protocols, not only in how you conduct yourself during the exam but also in the materials you access to prepare for the exam and in your conduct after the exam with respect to maintaining the exam's confidentiality. Your violation of these standards could interfere with your obtaining your validated, passing USMLE score. The USMLE offers you its protective procedures for that instance, where it has withheld your passing score because of suspected standards violations.
Enforcement of USMLE Standards
Because the USMLE must protect the public against unsafe medical practice, USMLE officials must hold each international medical graduate or other examinee taking the exam to the same minimum standards. USMLE officials cannot be lax in their enforcement of those standards. If international medical graduates and other examinees could cheat their way into the exam or through the exam, then USMLE officials would have failed in their primary duty. That failure could lead to the injury or death of medical patients. USMLE officials must, therefore, strictly enforce USMLE standards. USMLE officials do so through their anomalous performanceprocedures, extenuating circumstances procedures, and invalidated exam score procedures. Our attorneys know those procedures and how they affect your ability to obtain your validated, passing USMLE exam.
USMLE Issues Implicating Protective Procedures
International medical graduates generally need our help invoking USMLE protective procedures when they face one of three issues. First, you may have failed to qualify to sit for the USMLE Step 3 exam because of medical school, medical residency, or ECFMG certification issues. We can invoke USMLE protective procedures to address qualifying issues. Second, because of extenuating circumstances like illness or injury or for other reasons, you may have faced issues passing the USMLE Step 3 exam. We can help you invoke USMLE protective procedures to limit the impact of extenuating circumstances or other issues. Finally, you may have faced issues obtaining your validated, passing USMLE Step 3 exam score because of accusations of cheating or other suspicious behavior before, during, or after the exam. Once again, we can help you invoke USMLE protective procedures to contest cheating or similar allegations and obtain the release of your valid, passing Step 3 exam score.
The Role of USMLE Protective Procedures
USMLE officials know how important passing the exam is to international medical graduates and their futures. While USMLE officials must closely regulate examinee qualifications and behavior, USMLE officials also recognize their obligation to treat examinees fairly. USMLE officials know that they must avoid false, exaggerated, or unfounded allegations of exam misconduct. They also know that they must, to satisfy constitutional due process and basic fairness, provide fair procedures by which international medical graduates and other examinees may contest exam misconduct charges. The USMLE's protective procedures fulfill those obligations of fairness to examinees who have been unable to obtain their validated, passing Step 3 exam score because of misconduct allegations or other irregularities. Let us help you invoke those procedures if USMLE officials are delaying the release of your validated, passing Step 3 exam score or if you face other USMLE issues.
USMLE Investigation Procedure
The USMLE Bulletin of Information describes the first protective procedure our attorneys may invoke on your behalf to address and resolve your USMLE issue. The USMLE Bulletin of Information states that in the event of a USMLE investigation of your suspected violation of its policies and procedures, “you will be advised of the matter and will have an opportunity to provide information that you consider relevant.” The USMLE Bulletin of Information does not further state what opportunity USMLE officials will grant you. The Bulletin only asserts that you have the duty to “cooperate fully, including providing all requested documentation and truthfully answering all questions posed during investigative interviews conducted on behalf of the USMLE program.”
Responding to USMLE Investigation Procedure
While the USMLE Bulletin of Information does not say more about its investigation procedure, the clear implication of the little the Bulletin does reveal is that USMLE officials expect to hear your account of what happened that led to its suspicions. We can help you give your account to USMLE investigating officials in the most reliable, credible, and trustworthy manner for your best investigation outcome. We can identify and gather your exonerating and mitigating evidence, organize that evidence into a consistent and comprehensive presentation, and communicate that evidence in a timely and sensitive manner to USMLE investigators with the greatest credibility. We may also be able to evaluate and challenge any adverse evidence, showing USMLE investigators that the adverse evidence lacks credibility. We may also be able to arrange conciliation conferences at which to negotiate relief, including prompt dismissal of the allegations and release of your validated, passing Step 3 exam score.
Steps to Take on Notice of USMLE Investigation
Heading off further allegations and formal charges at the investigation stage can be your best way of addressing and promptly resolving USMLE issues in your favor. Retain us the moment you receive a USMLE notice of investigation so that we can help you take the above steps. Preserve any items related to your matter, including electronic communications and files. Promptly share your complete information with us so that we can evaluate, organize, and present it timely. And resist submitting to interviews or providing written statements until you have retained us so that we can ensure that your statements are accurate, complete, and consistent with your own memory and records. The USMLE Bulletin of Information expressly states that withholding or misrepresenting information in your interview constitutes irregular behavior punishable by additional misconduct charges.
USMLE Procedure on Irregular Behavior
The USMLE's promised procedure of the investigation stage, where we can help you with your interview and response with documentation and information, is just your first protective procedure that we may be able to invoke to dispose of your USMLE issues promptly. If the investigation results in evidence that you violated USMLE rules, then the USMLE Bulletin of Information states that it will refer your matter for prosecution “under the USMLE Policies and Procedures Regarding Irregular Behavior.” The USMLE does not maintain its own such policies but instead relies on the ECFMG's Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior. Those protective procedures follow several stages. Our attorneys can appear on your behalf at each stage to advocate for the early and favorable resolution of your USMLE issue.
Investigation of Irregular Behavior
If USMLE officials refer your matter to the ECFMG under the ECFMG's Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior, then those policies first provide for an investigation by the ECFMG disciplinary staff. Those investigators may collect materials from the test center where you took the Step 3 exam, examine records your medical school officials provide, and interview test center staff, medical school officials, other examinees who claim to have observed your exam misconduct, and anyone else with information. Disciplinary officials use that investigation information to decide whether to refer you to the ECFMG's Credentials Committee. You are better off, of course, avoiding Credentials Committee referral. We may be able to help you do so. If you learn you are under USMLE and ECFMG investigation, our attorneys may be able to identify, organize, and present your information to investigators to convince them of your innocence and not to refer your matter.
Credentials Committee Referral
The ECFMG Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior's next protective procedures involve referral to the ECFMG's Medical Education Credentials Committee. While you would prefer avoiding a referral in favor of the investigation showing no good grounds for referral, if your matter does go to the Credentials Committee, we will have further opportunities to advocate for you under the Committee's own protective procedures. The Credentials Committee may notify you of the charges, asking that you submit a written statement contesting the charges. Once again, our attorneys may then promptly step in, helping you prepare and submit a thorough, accurate, explanatory, and well-documented written statement in a timely manner. Mere denials may not be sufficient. The better course is to allow us to present a full explanation with reliable documentation from all available witnesses and sources. Your right and opportunity to submit a written statement is your next protective procedure, one that we know how to invoke for your best strategic action and outcome.
Irregular Behavior Formal Hearing
If the ECFMG Credentials Committee does not dismiss the charge based on your written response, the Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior next provide that you may request a formal hearing. The formal hearing rules are naturally more extensive than the broad authorization the policies and procedures give for investigation. You have the right to present your own testimony, the testimony of your own witnesses, and your documentary evidence at the hearing. You may also retain us to cross-examine the adverse witnesses who must appear and testify under oath. The policies and procedures also provide for stenographic recording of the proceedings. Our attorneys have the administrative hearing skills to invoke these and other hearing procedures for your best outcome. Your hearing rights, though, are not self-executing. You cannot simply sit back and expect the Credentials Committee to defend you. It won't do so. Instead, retain us to invoke these protective procedures and deploy them strategically for your best outcome.
Irregular Behavior Reconsideration and Appeal
The ECFMG's Policies and Procedures on Irregular Behavior also give you the right to petition the Credentials Committee for reconsideration. A petition for reconsideration gives our attorneys the chance to show the Committee its errors if you have already lost your formal hearing before the Committee. Let us order and review the stenographic record, identify the legal and factual errors in the Committee's decision, and submit a petition showing that the Committee should fix its errors and dismiss the irregular behavior charges. The same policies and procedures grant you the right to appeal the decision to the Review Committee for Appeals. We can take the same steps of getting the record, preparing the appeal brief, and submitting the appeal in a timely manner.
Premier Professional License Defense Available
If you are an international medical graduate facing USMLE issues, the Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team has the premier attorney services you need to invoke USMLE protective procedures. Consider all that you have at stake in your international medical education and future medical practice as a licensed physician in the United States. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form to retain us to invoke the above USMLE protective procedures.
