There was a post above, I believe from aProgramDirector saying that he/she would not be happy to take in any of the 4th years because of not knowing how competent we are... thats understandable.
To avoid any confusion, I want to be clear that the above was supposed to be "if I was a medical school Dean, then I would have a problem taking a 4th year student....". As a PD, I am happy to evaluate SJB students and consider them for spots. Obviously, not this year.
I can't help but to think how screwed up this is. The LCME has put the students in a terrible position. The LCME told the students "yes, this is a quality school, you can go here and get licensed if you pass the tests". That is a guarantee that the school is acceptable. The LCME should change their ruling to apply to any students who enroll after the accreditation was withdrawn.
This is a very reasonable, but difficult, problem. If the LCME truly feels that the clinical training is not acceptable, then it's hard to say "Well, the training environment isn't good enough to train physicians. But, since you have some 1st years that just started, we'll let you train them in an unacceptable training environment.
That being said, I think the "fairest" thing to do would have been to withdraw accreditation at the end of the year. This would have allowed 4th years to graduate, and everyone else to look around for a new school / options, with some buffer time built in.
Yup, I agree. I am a 4th year too and its really cool to read others students' posts that feel for us. Also, there have been a few schools that have stepped up to the plate and are willing to accept transfers... Although it's going to be interesting because most of these schools only have 1-2 spots. There are around 60 of us in 4th year so lets see.
It's going to be crazy competitive for spots. Much will depend on who has done the best, who knows whom, and plain luck. Students who had multiple acceptances but chose SJB might be in a better situation -- I'd call those schools ASAP.
lawsuit?
I hate most lawsuits but this seems so screwed up from keeping it secret to just leaving the students screwed for at least one year.
Loss a year, you basically lose 250K of income potential, right? At the very least I hope they offered your fall tuition back.
There is almost no question that there will be a lawsuit about this, likely class action. However, there's also a good chance that SJB will simply declare bankruptcy. Only if they are sitting on a big endowment, or if their building is worth $$$$, will this amount to anything. And by the time the lawyers take their slice of the pie....
transfer if you can, but if you can't...don't graduate from sjb! you graduate and get the MD...you're DONE!...you can't get another MD degree from anywhere! and then you really will be stuck with a worthless degree...an MD from a non LCME school that has no pathway to getting licensed!
This is incredibly good advice. If you can transfer to another LCME school, that's your best option. If you go to a carib school, or if you simply don't graduate at all, you can always hope that SJB gets restarted. If they do, they might offer to allow all prior students to re-matriculate and graduate. An SJB diploma at this point would likely be harmful, as stated above. Since it's not IMED listed, you'd never qualify for Step 3.
