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I am writing this in order to expose wrongdoings committed at a NYS medical school. My life has been significantly impacted by this issue. This is for all students, but especially for those considered to be minorities. It is highly personal, but I feel encouraged to be able to share this story with future doctors below:
BEWARE OF WHERE YOU APPLY & ATTEND MEDICAL SCHOOL……
I am a physician, and graduated from the SUNY at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. I completed a one year Internship in surgery. My career goal was to become a neurological surgeon. That dream and my life are over. The school would not grant me the complete number of years (6-7) required to achieve my career goal and placed me into a 1 year slot only. There were also some issues regarding my residency match, in which several believed was unscrupulously adulterated by certain members of the school’s administration so that I, a young person of color, would not fully match in a surgical residency training position. Since I have graduated from this medical institution, I have received nothing but the most contemptuous treatment from the school’s administration and staff. It has been to my utter dismay that I have been unable to successfully apply to and complete a residency program in my field of interest, because each and every time I or a program contacts the school for documentation, there is an abrupt denial or refusal to provide the requested documents.
When I have attempted to apply to other surgical programs, the school’s Office of Medical Education (OME) and the Graduate Medical Education (GME) office would not send out my application materials in their entirety via ERAS so that I could be placed in a residency and complete my training. This was primarily at the hands of the Senior Dean of the OME. Whenever I called to inquire about my paperwork or application completion, she refused to take my calls and staff repeatedly told me they could not act on my behalf because “Dr. No told them so.” As a medical student, I was informed by Dr. No that she did not believe I could become a surgeon because “people like you (the PG version) simply cannot operate”, and that “she would not support my decision” and would take measures to use her office and position to “block my application” so “that it would not and could not ever happen, dear.”
I have spent hundreds to thousands of dollars applying through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) with repeated failure secondary to the issue of my requested letters of recommendation being sent to the OME, but not being uploaded or being "lost" so that I would not have a completed application. Other documents would not be uploaded as well. Whenever I would make contact with the OME via telephone, the staff there would either place me on hold extensively, promise to call me back and fail to, or state to me that they have "never received any documents" for me. In addition, I was never allowed to discuss my concerns with anyone there and was always forwarded onlyto Dr. No, with whom I have had an extremely extensive and negative history of experiences. Therefore, I have never had a completed application to be accepted for review by any residency program. Her prediction came true in its entirety. One cruel person has changed the entire trajectory of my life and destroyed my future.
It has become painfully obvious to me and others that my current situation is evident of a blatant misuse and abuse of power by persons who were in authority at the time of my professional education. It is a travesty of justice for someone to actively work to derail and outright decimate the career of a student simply because they have the power to do so. There has also been a significant interference with my prospective economic advantage in relation to the harm done to my potential surgical career earnings due to lost years of training and employment. I simply fail to comprehend how and why I am receiving such disgraceful treatment as a graduate of a U.S. medical school. It is now 2015, and because of lost income and lost opportunity, I have been unable to appropriately provide for myself and pay off the hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. I would have been able to do so had I been allowed to successfully complete a residency and fellowship, culminating in a career as a fully trained surgeon. I do not believe I am any less important or less capable than my class of cohorts that have proven themselves, completed residencies, and progressed in successful careers in medicine. I should have been provided the opportunity long ago to do the same. However, I continue to receive inappropriately harsh and unethical treatment which many have perceived to be blatantly racist, bigoted, and discriminatory. Poverty, instability and discrimination are the shaky foundations of too many lives. They are also leading risk factors for depression. Thus began my very intimate association with mental illness. My diagnoses: Severe major depression with suicide attempt of high lethality and PTSD.
I later returned to school and acquired Master’s degrees and advanced training fellowships in translational medical research in order to acquire another doctorate. This opportunity was removed from me after a SUNY institution misused governmental funds and refused to provide monies allotted to it for my education and training.
I went to see three NYS Senators about this situation. None helped.
I went to see my Congressional officer. There was no help for me there.
The Governor? No help for me there, either.
I lost my salary and benefits. My student loans charged off. I cannot repay them. I lost my residence, degrees and belongings. I was out on the street with nowhere to go or anyone to turn toI felt robbed again.
I descended further into the abyss of mental illness.
I developed nightmares. I became immobile, agoraphobic, and could not eat or care for myself. I survived a severe suicide attempt, but I became disabled. Most of my days are spent in sickness, rather than in health. I came from a humble background, and was a scholarship student all of my life. I worked hard for everything I had achieved. I had mistakenly believed that if one was honest and diligent, one would succeed. Was I ever wrong in that assumption. I will never work again. This was not supposed to happen to “someone like me”. I want to make this story public as a cautionary tale to inform others who have, or will suffer injustices of this nature. I’d also like to inform those who choose to help them. Thank you.
Huh?? ExplainThe school would not grant me the complete number of years (6-7) required to achieve my career goal and placed me into a 1 year slot only. There were also some issues regarding my residency match, in which several believed was unscrupulously adulterated by certain members of the school’s administration so that I, a young person of color, would not fully match in a surgical residency training position.
What negative experiences? And who is "Dr. No"? What office does this person hold? Who did you have to advocate on your behalf??I was never allowed to discuss my concerns with anyone there and was always forwarded onlyto Dr. No, with whom I have had an extremely extensive and negative history of experiences.
Who uses the term neurological surgeon?
Something seems very very off with this
Hmmmm, should be a SDN rule that who ever replies first to a bizarre post, must copy and past it in its entirety, so latecomers will be able to read it after the OP comes back and deletes it.
I am writing this in order to expose wrongdoings committed at a NYS medical school. My life has been significantly impacted by this issue. This is for all students, but especially for those considered to be minorities. It is highly personal, but I feel encouraged to be able to share this story with future doctors below:
BEWARE OF WHERE YOU APPLY & ATTEND MEDICAL SCHOOL……
I am a physician, and graduated from the SUNY at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. I completed a one year Internship in surgery. My career goal was to become a neurological surgeon. That dream and my life are over. The school would not grant me the complete number of years (6-7) required to achieve my career goal and placed me into a 1 year slot only. There were also some issues regarding my residency match, in which several believed was unscrupulously adulterated by certain members of the school’s administration so that I, a young person of color, would not fully match in a surgical residency training position. Since I have graduated from this medical institution, I have received nothing but the most contemptuous treatment from the school’s administration and staff. It has been to my utter dismay that I have been unable to successfully apply to and complete a residency program in my field of interest, because each and every time I or a program contacts the school for documentation, there is an abrupt denial or refusal to provide the requested documents.
When I have attempted to apply to other surgical programs, the school’s Office of Medical Education (OME) and the Graduate Medical Education (GME) office would not send out my application materials in their entirety via ERAS so that I could be placed in a residency and complete my training. This was primarily at the hands of the Senior Dean of the OME. Whenever I called to inquire about my paperwork or application completion, she refused to take my calls and staff repeatedly told me they could not act on my behalf because “Dr. No told them so.” As a medical student, I was informed by Dr. No that she did not believe I could become a surgeon because “people like you (the PG version) simply cannot operate”, and that “she would not support my decision” and would take measures to use her office and position to “block my application” so “that it would not and could not ever happen, dear.”
I have spent hundreds to thousands of dollars applying through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) with repeated failure secondary to the issue of my requested letters of recommendation being sent to the OME, but not being uploaded or being "lost" so that I would not have a completed application. Other documents would not be uploaded as well. Whenever I would make contact with the OME via telephone, the staff there would either place me on hold extensively, promise to call me back and fail to, or state to me that they have "never received any documents" for me. In addition, I was never allowed to discuss my concerns with anyone there and was always forwarded onlyto Dr. No, with whom I have had an extremely extensive and negative history of experiences. Therefore, I have never had a completed application to be accepted for review by any residency program. Her prediction came true in its entirety. One cruel person has changed the entire trajectory of my life and destroyed my future.
It has become painfully obvious to me and others that my current situation is evident of a blatant misuse and abuse of power by persons who were in authority at the time of my professional education. It is a travesty of justice for someone to actively work to derail and outright decimate the career of a student simply because they have the power to do so. There has also been a significant interference with my prospective economic advantage in relation to the harm done to my potential surgical career earnings due to lost years of training and employment. I simply fail to comprehend how and why I am receiving such disgraceful treatment as a graduate of a U.S. medical school. It is now 2015, and because of lost income and lost opportunity, I have been unable to appropriately provide for myself and pay off the hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. I would have been able to do so had I been allowed to successfully complete a residency and fellowship, culminating in a career as a fully trained surgeon. I do not believe I am any less important or less capable than my class of cohorts that have proven themselves, completed residencies, and progressed in successful careers in medicine. I should have been provided the opportunity long ago to do the same. However, I continue to receive inappropriately harsh and unethical treatment which many have perceived to be blatantly racist, bigoted, and discriminatory. Poverty, instability and discrimination are the shaky foundations of too many lives. They are also leading risk factors for depression. Thus began my very intimate association with mental illness. My diagnoses: Severe major depression with suicide attempt of high lethality and PTSD.
I later returned to school and acquired Master’s degrees and advanced training fellowships in translational medical research in order to acquire another doctorate. This opportunity was removed from me after a SUNY institution misused governmental funds and refused to provide monies allotted to it for my education and training.
I went to see three NYS Senators about this situation. None helped.
I went to see my Congressional officer. There was no help for me there.
The Governor? No help for me there, either.
I lost my salary and benefits. My student loans charged off. I cannot repay them. I lost my residence, degrees and belongings. I was out on the street with nowhere to go or anyone to turn to.
I felt robbed again.
I descended further into the abyss of mental illness.
I developed nightmares. I became immobile, agoraphobic, and could not eat or care for myself. I survived a severe suicide attempt, but I became disabled. Most of my days are spent in sickness, rather than in health. I came from a humble background, and was a scholarship student all of my life. I worked hard for everything I had achieved. I had mistakenly believed that if one was honest and diligent, one would succeed. Was I ever wrong in that assumption. I will never work again. This was not supposed to happen to “someone like me”. I want to make this story public as a cautionary tale to inform others who have, or will suffer injustices of this nature. I’d also like to inform those who choose to help them. Thank you.
Many people...?
I find this story hard to believe
Really? Thank you so much, but my legal team believes my case could become a landmark one in Fed. court. Attached are other cases exemplifying the reprehensible racism occurring at these "institutions of higher learning". God bless you as well, you will make one heck of a compassionate, empathetic doctor.
Really? Thank you so much, but my legal team believes my case could become a landmark one in Fed. court. Attached are other cases exemplifying the reprehensible racism occurring at these "institutions of higher learning". God bless you as well, you will make one heck of a compassionate, empathetic doctor.
First of all, my character has absolutely nothing to do with your argument. Your argument is that you are being held back because you are a person of color. Burnetts law belongs in preallo, not in this section. A quick look at the website for buffalo's surgical program reveals many "people of color". Also, buffalo runs a prematriculation program specifically for minorities who did not receive acceptance to medical school where they attend classes for a year before being granted acceptance to one of a number of schools that are affiliated with the program including buffalo.
I read your attached documents and they leads me to wonder if you read them at all as opposed to simply copy pasting whatever you found from a Google search of "suny doctor discrimination". The case involving dr. Zhao is about a post doctoral research fellow at suny downstate, not suny buffalo. It looks to me that dr. Zhao could not produce data of sufficient quality from experiments including western blot and elisa. I see no relevance of that case to yours as it is a completely different situation in a completely different field involving completely different people at a completely different institution.
The case about the surgical resident, dr. Barsoumian, shows that he was placed on probation for continued unprofessional behavior due to concerns about professionalism, clinical ability and honesty. He had two unsatisfactory rotations and faculty expressed reservations with allowing him to return. There was also a pending sexual harassment case against him at a different hospital system. This is a physician who "transferred" from rochester's medical school to st. Georges in the Caribbean. There was no mention of race in that decision. So I remain unconvinced by your statement of "reprehensible racism at institutions of higher learning". Rather, you managed to obtain a prelim surgery spot only and are trying to force the residency program to accept you for further training through legal means with a discrimination suit rather than relying on your own knowledge and abilities as a physician.
We see these kind of stories every once in a while here and invariably there are unflattering details that are left out which completely change the story.
I wish I could like this post twice.
Really? Thank you so much, but my legal team believes my case could become a landmark one in Fed. court. Attached are other cases exemplifying the reprehensible racism occurring at these "institutions of higher learning". God bless you as well, you will make one heck of a compassionate, empathetic doctor.
Also legal "team". Anyone else just picturing Saul Goodman?If your legal team was even halfway decent, they wouldn't have let you come here posting this dumb stuff on the internets.
Most people don't say neurological surgeonMany people...?
Most people don't say neurological surgeon
Most say neurosurgeon
Actually I would posit that the majority if not all of the regular posters here do truly care. The problem is that most of us have seen the same thing over and over again so we get pretty good at picking out the bull****. Coddling a bull*****er only leads to more bull****, so we point it out.If you are at risk of suicide or have depression, I recommend against reading SDN. Many of the members here don't care if you are at risk of harming yourself or others and will bash you just the same.
Actually I would posit that the majority if not all of the regular posters here do truly care. The problem is that most of us have seen the same thing over and over again so we get pretty good at picking out the bull****. Coddling a bull*****er only leads to more bull****, so we point it out.
First of all, my character has absolutely nothing to do with your argument. Your argument is that you are being held back because you are a person of color. Burnetts law belongs in preallo, not in this section. A quick look at the website for buffalo's surgical program reveals many "people of color". Also, buffalo runs a prematriculation program specifically for minorities who did not receive acceptance to medical school where they attend classes for a year before being granted acceptance to one of a number of schools that are affiliated with the program including buffalo.
I read your attached documents and they leads me to wonder if you read them at all as opposed to simply copy pasting whatever you found from a Google search of "suny doctor discrimination". The case involving dr. Zhao is about a post doctoral research fellow at suny downstate, not suny buffalo. It looks to me that dr. Zhao could not produce data of sufficient quality from experiments including western blot and elisa. I see no relevance of that case to yours as it is a completely different situation in a completely different field involving completely different people at a completely different institution.
The case about the surgical resident, dr. Barsoumian, shows that he was placed on probation for continued unprofessional behavior due to concerns about professionalism, clinical ability and honesty. He had two unsatisfactory rotations and faculty expressed reservations with allowing him to return. There was also a pending sexual harassment case against him at a different hospital system. This is a physician who "transferred" from rochester's medical school to st. Georges in the Caribbean. There was no mention of race in that decision. So I remain unconvinced by your statement of "reprehensible racism at institutions of higher learning". Rather, you managed to obtain a prelim surgery spot only and are trying to force the residency program to accept you for further training through legal means with a discrimination suit rather than relying on your own knowledge and abilities as a physician.
We see these kind of stories every once in a while here and invariably there are unflattering details that are left out which completely change the story.
Feel free to click the ignore button at any time.......
healing with cold, hard steel
legal team believes my case could become a landmark one in Fed. court
I also recommend you don't accuse users, let alone users with a long posting history, to be shills for whoever did you wrong. Doesn't exactly lend credibility.
Agreed.
OP, it also doesn't exactly lend credibility to begin your story by implying that a) you feel entitled to a neurosurgery residency at a specific program, and b) that you believe that the program has wronged you by withholding said residency. You didn't even try to make the claim that you are qualified. You just said "I wanted it and they didn't give it to me." (One would expect an argument for discrimination to begin with "here is why I am qualified. Here are my stats. Here are the program's average stats. As you an see, I belong in this program." Your decision to not make this case leads one to believe that your numbers do not support such an argument).
Frankly, when you establish this victim mentality early on in your argument, it becomes impossible for the reader to not assume that the rest of your story is colored by the same mindset. I have to wonder if this program is actually actively trying to derail you from finding another residency, or if you are just interpreting reasonable steps by your program as abuse because this is the lens through which you view the world, and you believe that everyone who doesn't hand you what you want is being abusive.
Fact.If your legal team was even halfway decent, they wouldn't have let you come here posting this dumb stuff on the internets.
tl;dr version?
tl;dr version?
This guy doesn't have stats for his residency of choice, thinks it's racist they wont let him in.
Who uses the term neurological surgeon?
Something seems very very off with this
More likely one giant troll with no basis in reality.
Really? Thank you so much, but my legal team believes my case could become a landmark one in Fed. court. Attached are other cases exemplifying the reprehensible racism occurring at these "institutions of higher learning". God bless you as well, you will make one heck of a compassionate, empathetic doctor.