I have a family member who works in admin who maintains this is always what any HR enacts on the pathway to letting an employee go and CYA for any legal blowback on that front. This doesn't mean that every resident that is put in these positions is going to be let go or that the program isn't earnestly doing what it can to remediate and keep you. However, these are certainly steps that make it easier for them to let you go should they feel the need to.
How do you act? You do your best to find an attorney (other threads detail how) and you put any paperwork they want your signature on, or any other document that is essentially sanctioning you, past them. You document document document what is going on. If your health becomes a factor in any of this, you seek help and go to your own providers ASAP and have them document. Before you are terminated, you request an LOA with support from a health care provider that will sign for this. If they want you to go to a PHP, well, there's threads for that too, but long story short, you again want an attorney, your own providers behind you, and document. If the medical board becomes involved, it's potentially easier to find attorneys to represent you with that, but don't expect them to be able to help you with your program.
Never bring up to ANYONE that you are consulting an attorney, unless it's the medical board that asks or an attorney advises you to, because often they do need to know you are being represented. At that point, you generally would have no more direct contact with the board and everything would go through your attorney.
The point is not to antagonize the program, and some programs will see you getting representation as just that. So I would not reveal this until it seems that it's necessary. Keep in mind the minute it comes up that you have legal representation, the hospital risk management team becomes involved. This is good and bad. It can tie the hands of the PD, which depending on what they had planned, could help or hurt you. However, if they're truly malignant or already hate you, and are already playing with their own processes on a legal front to screw you, you actually have little to lose and potentially something to gain by negotiating.
You DO NOT have to threaten a lawsuit, nor should you. You just say that you thought it best to have someone who could advise you on employment law on the best way to leave and move forward in your career.
You'd be surprised what a program will do to help you in order to get you to sign on the dotted line and go quietly, to avoid any degree of trouble. Keep in mind, even with the most malignant PD in the world, if the hospital legal risk management team becomes involved, they will generally have to do whatever they say. This can lead to an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) that can outline what exactly you and your program can say about each other.
It's come up on SDN that if you're trying to get to another program, another PD may figure out that an NDA is in place and that you resorted to seeking the help of an attorney with your last program, and no one wants a litigious resident. Also that the "tone" of a PD to PD communication could also reveal this. I maintain this is better than the other PD having full leeway to completely trash you and say whatever they want. If it came up, I would just say that you were overwhelmed with trying to figure out an equitable way to salvage your career, and representation seemed the best way to handle things as professionally as possible and with the least amount of difficulty involved. Possibly that won't work but I question walking away from a program in this circumstance without any legal protection whatsoever.
Ultimately, it's controversial what to do and the role of legal advice. If nothing else and you can afford it, advice is advice, you can choose not to follow it per your judgement.
Ultimately, what any resident might hope to get out of a negotiation, which should ideally take place before you're totally canned, (because a terminated/dismissed/resigned resident has essentially no employee rights as they are not an employee any longer). You can often delay that asking for an appeal or a leave (again, preferably before you are terminated)
1) NDA with program
2) Negotiated neutral-to-positive LOR from the PD (yes, even if they hate you, a neutral one can be obtained, unless they can convince the hospital risk management team that there is *more* legal liability created in providing one because you're just so terrible that there is no way they cannot say anything positive about you and must include certain negatives. (If an employee is hired to another job, and causes them problems, if the new employer can show that the old employer's LOR was a load of BS, they can actually sue them for providing an LOR in bad faith. So people are actually legally liable for the recommendations they give to other employers. This is one element at play in negotiating a letter). Employment law attorneys are not typically familiar with resident employment rules (which in the world of occupational law is bizarre by any standard), but negotiating LORs is a key part of their job and something they have experience in. And yes, your attorney can see that letter and can even negotiate it word for word. You may not get all your edits, but you'd be surprised.
3) Sealing your employment records and evaluations.
4) There may even be leeway on the ACGME milestone data (which is no doubt pretty damning) not being submitted to your record. Any program you work for, the PD can request this record if you go elsewhere.
5) A severance package, you can make a case for what you need this for. Reapplication costs, lost wages, paid vacation being paid out to you, COBRA, etc. See what sounds fair and could stick, an attorney helps here.
6) In return, you basically sign an NDA as well, and sign over your rights to ever sue the program for anything. This is what they want, and to a legal risk management team, much of the above is a very small price to pay to make you, the problem, go away quietly and cheaply.
Depending on how good a case they have for terminating you, how much they want to dig in, how important they feel from a legal standpoint it is to be free to blast you, will affect a lot of the above.
I'm not saying you're in a position to get all this, or that you will. But they're possibilities. And I list them, so that when residents are let go, which you CANNOT stop, you can try to do damage control. All you can affect is how you leave.
Consider going over my past post history on these topics.
I think it's too late for ERAS to be helpful to you for matching/soaping until next year. You may want to figure out how people look for spots outside the Match for this coming summer. Searching SDN could be helpful there.
If you know that the program is set on completely and totally boning you, provided you are not dismissed or terminated yet, these are strategies.
If you are have already signed something going away quietly, there is very little you can do unless you can PROVE discrimination, harassment, or other ways they essentially illegally "blackmailed" you into signing. All of which is extremely difficult. You have the most protections and options while you are still an employee.
