Lawsuit over the match

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terpgirl

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Hi, I'm sorry I'm behind and asking, but could you point me in the direction of information regarding this? Or previous threads?

Long story short, in my health policy class we have to find information on our professor for a short short paper. I've done a quick google search on him, Paul Jung, and his name is popping up in really long documents over this. Also, I believe he wrote something titled along the lines of "How NOT to Get into Medical School"!

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If I'm not mistaken, the illustrious lawsuit was dismissed a few weeks ago.

Paul Jung was actually a teaching assistant for my Physician & Society course in med school while he was a Robt Wood Johnson fellow. He's a pretty cool guy who truly cares about resident and patient safety.

Cheers,
doepug
 
Hahaha yeah, I think we're talking about the same guy! I take it you're at Hopkins, I'm at UMCP. He's a really funny guy :)

So, have any dirt on him for my research? ;-) I'd appreciate it!
 
Lawsuit was dismissed because Congress passed a law "clarifying" the anti-trust law exempting the defendants.

Ed
 
Because of years of malpractice harrassment of physicians, medical students and residents almost always say that the lawsuit is wrong and even mock the plaintiff. This is dangerous behavior. Residents and medical students are victims who, in this case, are praising the torture they receive.

The lawsuit has been dismissed on summary judgment on antitrust grounds but no decision was made as far as price fixing. Summary judgment is where the judge obstructs the case and prevents it from going to trial. This conflicts with the common notion that people are "entitled to have their day in court". While some baseless cases are thrown out, summary judgment is often overused and valid cases are often thrown out (a miscarriage of justice). This is because federal judges, who have lifetime job security, want to reduce their workload. How evil!

Do not take the sides of the defendants (NMRP and others) lawyers. They accuse residents of unclean hands (concept that residents themselves acted improperly) and that the residents did not mitigate the circumstances (try to remedy the situation). See how residents help the medical system and see how they blame the residents! On the other hand, this could just be a case of how unethical lawyers are. They can use any argument, even blame the victims, because in law it is permitted to bend the truth so much that it no longer represents the truth.

Here are some of my conclusions:
1. Residents and medical students should not be so quick to side with the captors (residencies). They should consider unionizing. A single resident alone is powerless because they can have their career ruined by a single penstroke.
2. Lawyers are evil and sneaky. One set of lawyers is making a somewhat wild claim that only has a hint of validity and the other set of lawyers has the gall to blame the residents/victims, not themselves (the hospitals and residencies).
3. Resident take abuse that would not be permitted in any other type of employment (or school, for that matter). Some individual faculty members are evil and abusive. (This is not to say all are as some are wonderful).
4. Federal judges are almost as evil as tricky lawyers.
 
Most agree that residents are taken advantage of and I agree with the potential leveraging power of unionizing, that lawyers are evil, that residents take unique abuse, and that judges are evil, too.

However, what was the motivation of the lawsuit? Seemed like the filers stood to get a lot of money, right? Isn't that a surprise (it's the basis of almost every lawsuit). Does the Match really control resident salaries? I don't think reimbursement changed a whole lot when the Match came about. And, most of all:

Is getting rid of the Match in our best interest? I think not. Before the Match, getting a position was a HUGE good-old-boy network. It was all about who you knew, who was making phone calls for you, who you smoozed, and what your last name was. What did your Daddy do? It was all about back-door deals and shady practices. No thanks. This is no way to get a residency slot. Surely good candidates without connections were getting the shaft. I like to think programs actually ranked me on merit. Yeah, I'm an idealist. I don't think the match is perfect, but It seems it is probably an improvement over the free-for-all, back door system.
 
Kilgorian said:
Is getting rid of the Match in our best interest? I think not. Before the Match, getting a position was a HUGE good-old-boy network. It was all about who you knew, who was making phone calls for you, who you smoozed, and what your last name was. What did your Daddy do? It was all about back-door deals and shady practices. No thanks. This is no way to get a residency slot. Surely good candidates without connections were getting the shaft. I like to think programs actually ranked me on merit. Yeah, I'm an idealist. I don't think the match is perfect, but It seems it is probably an improvement over the free-for-all, back door system.

Yes and no. I sure would like to know where I am going before mid-March. I wish that the Match was SOONER, or that I would get an idea of where I was going earlier (if I were accepted to my fav place in Dec, I'd rather do that). I have a husband who will be trying to find a Post-Doc position, which often takes many months to work out (apply, interview, then agree to start 6mo later). So, my poor hubby can be looking for jobs now, but can't commit to anything until after I match. And there are a max of 2 programs (in general) per city we're looking at. So he can concentrate on two cities, but if I match to #5 (or #8 or #12), all the work is down the tubes...
 
The only way to find out sooner is to go back to the old system. Some people are still interviewing in February. Than, programs have to generate a rank list and this can be a monumental task involving many busy faculty. Then, the results come out (not too much longer after lists are submitted). So, there are no great delays. If all the interviews ended sooner, then the match would be out sooner. Interview timeframes are not determined by the match.

Tell your husband to let the places know about your match; hopefully they're understanding. Coordinating with stuff like that can be difficult/impossible. Best of luck to you guys.
 
Slave#8801011 said:
Summary judgment is where the judge obstructs the case and prevents it from going to trial. This conflicts with the common notion that people are "entitled to have their day in court". While some baseless cases are thrown out, summary judgment is often overused and valid cases are often thrown out (a miscarriage of justice). This is because federal judges, who have lifetime job security, want to reduce their workload. How evil!
4. Federal judges are almost as evil as tricky lawyers.

With all do respect, you don't know what you're talking about. To prosecute a law suit, you need a cause of action. Without a cause of action, your lawsuit will be dismissed, either at summary judgement, or at a motion to dismiss prior to discovery. Summary judgement motions are reviewed by taking all of the facts in dispute in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. The judge then applies the law to these facts. This is an important review because many cases do not have a legal basis to proceed and are thus not entitled to be heard by the jury.

In this particular case, the plaintiffs sued claiming they were covered by a federal statute (which in my opinion they were at the time the suit was filed). Congress ameneded the law specifically saying that they it didn't apply to the plaintiffs. Thus, the motion must be granted be the plaintiffs no longer have a cause of action. Had this law change be in place prior to the case being filed, no lawyer would have filed it in the first place. In such a circumstance, the defense would have made a motion to dismiss under FRCP 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

Finally, how many federal judges have you met? How many cases have you observed? In my career, I have know a dozen a probably spent about 1500 hours in federal court. I have never seen a federal judge act inappropriately. Futher, the ones I have know were ethically beyond reproach. To imply that the judges are dismisses cases with merit just because they want to clear their docket is laughable. It's not like they get penalized for falling behind. They still come in at 9 and leave at 430 no matter how many cases they have. I can certainly see criticizing state judges as a group, because they tend to be much more political, but not federal judges.

Ed
 
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