No real debate here. It is a contract and you are breaching it. It is an enforceable contract. And not standing behind your signature is by definition unethical. You are reneging on an agreement and absent some acceptable reason based on actions by the other party this is considered unethical in most circles. The only thing subject to debate is whether anyone would ever bother enforcing such a contract in court, when there is a ready supply of would-be residents. No PD would want to spend a lot of time or money litigating this kind of breach of agreement -- the damages will be negligible. So you can probably breach and get away with it. That is the only thing perhaps subject to debate. The legality, enforceability and ethics of signing and reneging on a contract, however, are NOT a matter of debate in any way or form. If you are an ethical person or want to stay on firm legal ground, you simply cannot sign and then ignore contracts.
Just like a lawyer to point out when I have worded things badly...
😎
But, yes, I agree with L2D's assessment. With some additional questions / thoughts:
1. Legal -- Let's say the contract says it is terminatable with 90 days notice. If the contract starts on July 1st, if you informed the program >90 days before July 1st could you cancel it? I assume the 90 day clock starts with July 1, but I've always wondered.
2. Enforcible -- poorly worded by me. Agree with L2D, what I meant was that programs were unlikely to pursue it for all the reasons he mentions, and more.
3. Ethical -- this is a more difficult situation. Let's say I prematch into an IM program. Then, 2 weeks later, I get a dream-of-a-lifetime offer, a radiology spot. It's now or never, this offer is unlikely to recur and I can't start late. I see this as a tough situation. We're talking about my entire career here, it's not like I can just try again next year. Whether it's "ethical" to hold students to their contracts in this sort of situation is unclear.
Of course, this is a slippery slope. What about if I get an offer from a "better" IM program... same problem, but to a lesser degree.
I expect the correct answer is: "This student is an adult, they made a decision, and they should stand by it." And I think I agree.
So is any school that participates in NRMP also allowed to recruit by pre-match.....it sort of scares me that I might rank a program that has already filled its slots by pre-matchers.
I would also point out that if you actually rank a program that has no slots, or a program that didn't rank you at all, it does not hurt you in the match at all. You will simply match at the next program down on your list. You might have wasted time / effort / money in interviewing there, but that's it. I guess you could be disappointed that you matched one lower on your match list, but presumably if you knew this program actually had no slots, you simply would have moved everything below them up one more spot, so the result is the same.
And, as a final note, if the program really removed all of their slots from the match, the NRMP would (probably) remove them from the match, and you wouldn't be able to rank them at all.
