Who should I contact? anyone in the same boat?

[beyondfrustratd]

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In the course of my interviews an interviewer showed me how my school had put my cumulative gpa down as a 2.7 and my step 2 ck score as a 205/83 in my dean's letter. I am applying for radiology and these scores are pretty dismal. This information came only at the end of interview season, with very little time for the school to correct and make any fixes to my letter and try to get me further interviews. I only was able to get 3 interviews and the school really dragged its feet in helping me out further than correcting the letter with a letter of explanation with only 1 week left to interview. I showed them that the letter is used by 67% of radiology PD's in determining who to give interviews to but they still felt unconvinced that their error had made such an impact as to lay blame on them. I am waiting for the match results to prove to them that my fellow colleagues with similar scores were able to match and I wasnt and therefore their error ruined my future career. I want to sue the school but dont know how to go about it or who to contact or even what kind of attorney to speak with. Does anyone have any advice on this? HELP!!

 

[DrBowtie]

So those aren't your scores? or they are and you are just upset that they put that in the Dean's letter?

 

[beyondfrustratd]

Nice! No, not my scores (I actually scored 99 on both Step 1 and Step 2 so imagine my obvious frustration). The school found that they were actually the scores of someone with my exact same name but who had gone to the school 4-5 years prior. They blamed it on their switching computer systems, yet they still refused to do much about it.

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

Nice! No, not my scores (I actually scored 99 on both Step 1 and Step 2 so imagine my obvious frustration). The school found that they were actually the scores of someone with my exact same name but who had gone to the school 4-5 years prior. They blamed it on their switching computer systems, yet they still refused to do much about it.

Didn't you report your test scores to ERAS, though? So, programs should have that... I'd think they'd send out invites prior to Dean's letter, no?
Unless... you took Step 2CK late..

 

[PsychMedStudent]

Instead of spending time on how to make the school pay for their error, I would focus on how to go about matching in the best possible position you can get. Do the schools you interviewed at now know your actual scores? If you don't think your chances are good of matching, you could work on your strategy for the scramble as you will be one of the more attractive candidates out there on paper.

 

[representando]

You will probably have an uphill legal case, as so much goes into the match from scores, grades, your medical school prestige, interview, other LORs etc. And if you look at the NRMP data there are always people with high scores who don't match. There is no doubt that the mistake could have hurt you though and I wish that did not happen to you. You should focus on matching for now, and unfortunately it sounds like that may mean scramble. After next week, you can start thinking about legal options.

 

[hot sauce]

Didn't you report your test scores to ERAS, though? So, programs should have that... I'd think they'd send out invites prior to Dean's letter, no?
Unless... you took Step 2CK late..

Depends on the field. Some specialties don't send out many invites until after the dean's letter has been released. I believe the OP has a legitimate reason to be pretty upset. I don't know what ERAS looks like from program's side but it is possible that some programs just copy the scores out the dean's letter and don't double check to see if they match what was uploaded to eras.

Despite this I would second the advice of others that now is not the time to be pursuing for legal action. Hopefully you match which would be good for you but would probably make it hard to make a strong case (yes maybe you would have matched somewhere better but I'm not sure how much money that counts for in the courts). If you don't match I think it would be best to stay on good terms with your dean's office. If you do want to pursue legal action you'll probably get better advice from a lawyer than a bunch of doctors and medical students on this forum.

 

[titoincali]

Were you able to proofread your Deans Letter before it was sent out? Our school does and give us the opportunity to ask them to change things that are incorrect. While it might not help you this year, it might be a good suggestion to your school for the future.

 

[docintrg]

Dont know about GPA, if its reported wrong. But I believe most programs set filters on ERAS Step scores to shortlist and use step scores directly obtained from NBME. So it may not affect you as much. Though there is scope for confusion and negative influence of lower GPA.

 

[CardiacIntensivist]

In the course of my interviews an interviewer showed me how my school had put my cumulative gpa down as a 2.7 and my step 2 ck score as a 205/83 in my dean's letter. I am applying for radiology and these scores are pretty dismal. This information came only at the end of interview season, with very little time for the school to correct and make any fixes to my letter and try to get me further interviews. I only was able to get 3 interviews and the school really dragged its feet in helping me out further than correcting the letter with a letter of explanation with only 1 week left to interview. I showed them that the letter is used by 67% of radiology PD's in determining who to give interviews to but they still felt unconvinced that their error had made such an impact as to lay blame on them. I am waiting for the match results to prove to them that my fellow colleagues with similar scores were able to match and I wasnt and therefore their error ruined my future career. I want to sue the school but dont know how to go about it or who to contact or even what kind of attorney to speak with. Does anyone have any advice on this? HELP!!

Wait a sec, if your deans letter had your step 2 score you must have taken step 2 early enough so that you couldn't block the reporting of the score by the NBME....something's not right here

 

[CardiacIntensivist]

Also, like someone above said, didn't you get to proofread your dean's letter? My school set up meetings to go over our deans letter as well as giving us 2 months to proofread it. We had FREQUENT reminders to update it.

 

[Samoa]

A similar thing happened to me as a 4th year, although not quite so awful as your situation. My school had all of my grades in my specialty listed as a full grade lower than they were supposed to be, and my home chairman had the last page of my (supposed to be excellent) recommendation mixed up with that of another student on whose ethics he cast doubt in the LOR summary paragraph.

I didn't find out until November, although to my school's credit, they tried to get the corrections out as fast as possible, and I did get one more interview.

I was applying in a very competitive field, and didn't end up matching. But it wasn't a certainty that I would, even if there'd been no error. I'm sure it contributed, but I'll never really know how much.

 

[NOsquid]

Holy ****, this is painful just to read about 🙁

 

[DarknightX]

If this happened to me, I would make sure that every single medical student at the school and every single pre-med applying to that school knew about what happened (of course, after graduating and securing a residency position).

This is totally unacceptable. Even more unacceptable is the fact that your dean's office did little to help. Since it is supposed to be a Dean's Letter, the Dean should have been on the phone with every single place you interviewed at and told them about the mistake.

I'm sorry this happened to you, and I hope you make your dean and your school pay for this in some way.

 

[Eat Oatmeal]

I am curious as to the attitude of the dean's office and what they suggested to rectify this. If this was me and they were not kissing me feet at this point I would seriously consider some sort of formal complaint. If this were to prevent me from matching I would also consider some sort of litigation for at least the tuition I paid. I would be enraged.

 

[NOsquid]

Medicine is a small world, I've seen people get screwed but unfortunately I don't know how much there is to be gained from rocking the boat, especially early in your career.

My friend got accepted to a medical school, sent her deposit, and they told her literally 3 days before orientation she didn't have a spot. She had quit job, moved. Her family lawyer didn't think suing was in her best interest though.

 

[LolaAnesthesia]

I still don't get how any program would look at the scores on the Dean's Letter over the scores transmitted from the NBME transcripts. It does not make sense.

 

[beyondfrustratd]

My school did give the chance to proof read it months before they sent it and everything was correct on all the copies I saw. The step scores didn't come until after I had submitted the "final" draft. I never saw the actual one they sent out to the programs until I was at that interview. On the ones they emailed to me to proof read the GPA was correct, but somewhere between it got changed.

Obviously I am not pursing anything until after the match, I just wanted to know if anyone knew where to go from here and if they had similar experiences.

The deans office was not helpful at all. They pushed me off and passed the buck. I emailed and called everyday and finally they let me talk to the dean but unfortunately my clinical site is far from the deans office so I couldn't just go and drop in. The dean didn't offer any solution other than to wait until the results of the match come back to see if others with my scores and GPA matched. He only called 4 of my programs that still had interview spots, but I had to beg him to do that. I did get one more interview out of that. It is frustrating to think of how many more I could have had if they reacted sooner to this mistake.

 

[pupster]

My school did give the chance to proof read it months before they sent it and everything was correct on all the copies I saw. The step scores didn't come until after I had submitted the "final" draft. I never saw the actual one they sent out to the programs until I was at that interview. On the ones they emailed to me to proof read the GPA was correct, but somewhere between it got changed.

Obviously I am not pursing anything until after the match, I just wanted to know if anyone knew where to go from here and if they had similar experiences.

The deans office was not helpful at all. They pushed me off and passed the buck. I emailed and called everyday and finally they let me talk to the dean but unfortunately my clinical site is far from the deans office so I couldn't just go and drop in. The dean didn't offer any solution other than to wait until the results of the match come back to see if others with my scores and GPA matched. He only called 4 of my programs that still had interview spots, but I had to beg him to do that. I did get one more interview out of that. It is frustrating to think of how many more I could have had if they reacted sooner to this mistake.

did u match???!

 

[beyondfrustratd]

did u match???!

I matched into an IM position further down my list instead of the rads position I was going for. The school felt responsible and helped me scramble into an open rads position at a program I interviewed at because they didnt originally let that school know of the mistake they had made and therefore prevented me from being ranked. They also helped the other program fill the vacancy that was created by them getting me out of the IM position. It was extremely messy and totally unconventional the way things worked out and after a few grueling weeks on the phone it worked out but I still wouldn't recommend it to anyone. So in the end the school did try to make amends but ruffled alot of feathers in the process. I am happy with the result but not the way they went about doing it. I dont think I wouldve ended up suing as I didnt want to rock the boat early on in my career but I seriously contemplated it for a while.

 

[turquoiseblue]

glad it turned out for the best........