Fired from residency

[Ice-1]

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A freaky thing happened this week. One day I hear from an attending that there is an emergency meeting (of attendings I guess) "about a resident." The next day alot of rumors but no real news. Then the next day all the residents get an email saying that a named resident is no longer with the program. No other details are given. The person named is not an intern. This is causing a great deal of confusion among the remaining people. Anyone been in a similar situation? How was it handled?

 

[PathOne]

Ouch, sounds nasty. Luckily, I've never experienced such things. I can imagine that the rumor mill must be in overdrive...

 

[Wrigleyville]

I have heard of contracts not being renewed at the end of a given year (the "friendly" way to fire residents who are merely incompetant), but only once have I heard of someone being outright ****canned in the middle of a year.

I'm pretty sure your behavior has to be criminal or close to it to be let go all of a sudden. What are the "rumors"?

 

[Stimulate]

Residency programs can indeed fire a resident "on the spot" if there is some sort of behavior that is very aggregious. However, all programs (at least ACGME) require that proper procedures be followed. That resident will have a right to appeal the decision, which in our institution goes to the Division Chair, and then after that it goes up to a board convened by the GME department.

Unfortunately the process, in my opinion, can be very biased against the resident. All of the people on these committees are colleagues and/or friends and it really puts the pressure on the resident to make their case for re-instatement.

Also, the rumors will be flying because the program will not be able to disclose what happened. You can approach the resident, especially if he/she is a friend, and ask what happened, but who knows if what they tell you is the truth or not.

 

[f_w]

The only times this execution style firing happens is in cases of (near) criminal misconduct e.g. fondling an unconscious patient in front of a surveillance camera.
Parking in the chairmans spot won't get you this royal treatment.

 

[toothless rufus]

Parking in the chairmans spot won't get you this royal treatment.

 

[beyond all hope]

The resident may have left for personal reasons, changed programs etc.

Before starting rumors based on incomplete information, I'd recommend talking to the resident involved.

 

[Bitsy3221]

Stuff like this, although uncommon, do happen. When residents leave so quickly, as beyond all hope said, it is usually the choice of the resident. (Could include personal reasons, rehab, arrested, or that they were given notice of non-renewal of contract and they decided to walk out early rather than finish the year as a "lame duck"). Either that, or they did something egregious.

You are likely never going to find out the truth, although I'll be rumors will be abundant. I wouldn't bother asking the resident unless you were tight with this person to begin with--they are gone, and if it were you and some people you used to work with but were't close to started calling, would you want to air your dirty laundry knowing that it would just be spread around your old workplace? Just let it go.

 

[3dtp]

Residency programs can indeed fire a resident "on the spot" if there is some sort of behavior that is very aggregious. However, all programs (at least ACGME) require that proper procedures be followed. That resident will have a right to appeal the decision, which in our institution goes to the Division Chair, and then after that it goes up to a board convened by the GME department.

Unfortunately the process, in my opinion, can be very biased against the resident. All of the people on these committees are colleagues and/or friends and it really puts the pressure on the resident to make their case for re-instatement.

Also, the rumors will be flying because the program will not be able to disclose what happened. You can approach the resident, especially if he/she is a friend, and ask what happened, but who knows if what they tell you is the truth or not.

See this thread:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=241997

What is interesting is the OP criticized the program. Then after doing so on this forum deleted his criticism sometime later. In his warning the OP's original message quoted below in another's response said the program fired 4 residents. Another poster pointed out that this was a pattern with that hospital system. I hope he didn't get the ax, too. If he didn't, I'm sure his life was living hell for the balance of his time in the malignant program.

There are highly malignant programs out there. They may be far between, but they do exist. The ACGME does indeed require that a procedure be followed, but the cronyism factor is on the side of the hospital. Also, these procedures can be altered, abreviated or short circuited or given lip service to create a paper trail. If a resident is fired, it will strike terror into the hearts of the remaining residents who will then do anything and everything to keep out of the gunsights, especially if the fired resident wasn't blatently problematic. And, the ACGME will not intervene on behalf of an resident. Even if major rules, policies or procedures were violated.

Staying away from evil programs means finding out about them in advance, and this is not always easy or obvious. Avoid any programs where the checks and balances that Stimulate identified don't exist. Again the question is how do you know they are effective and will be used?

 

[funkless]

See this thread:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php

Fixed.

 

[Ice-1]

that link does not take you to a thread, are you sure that it is correct?

 

[tibor75]

there was a resident (intern actually) fired from our program a few years ago. he was really bad. There was never an official email sent though. He just disappeared and the word of mouth trickled through. I do a google search on him every now and then to see what he's up to. He's an internist in Michigan.

 

[f_w]

Firing someone for incompetence (I am sorry, poor academic performance) is a long and drawn out process. The sudden firing described here sounds more like an allegation of serious misconduct occured.