FSMB retains controversial resident reporting policy
FSMB retains controversial resident reporting policy
If you oversee medical residents, you may soon be asked to pick your poison: Report disciplinary cases to your state medical board and open yourself to up to legal liability, or ignore the reporting requirement and face disciplinary action of your own.
At the annual meeting of the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) in St. Louis two weeks ago, delegates unanimously rejected a resolution that would have weakened the organization’s controversial policies regarding oversight of medical residents. A variety of physician groups, including the Chicago-based American Medical Association and American Osteopathic Association, had supported the resolution.
The official policy of the Euless, TX-based FSMB is that state medical boards should "encourage" medical schools to share information about disciplinary actions taken against residents. That information would include unusual absences from a program of greater than two weeks, resignations, referrals to substance abuse programs, and dismissals.
In a white paper supporting its policy, the FSMB states: "Many physician disciplinary problems can be traced to early behaviors or occurrences. Early identification of these physicians will allow the medical board to institute safeguards to protect the public while allowing the physician to complete training."
While no one’s arguing the need to weed out bad physician candidates, many program directors who supervise residents worry about potential legal backlash should they finger individuals in their program. And even the FSMB itself concedes they may have a point.
"We do believe that on a state-by-state basis, [requirements] can be structured in such a way as to provide legal protection for program directors who make these kinds of reports," says Dale Austin, deputy executive vice president at FSMB. But the reality is that, to date, "those protections haven’t really been thought about and built in."
With regard to the tricky issue of reporting referrals to substance abuse programs, Austin notes that no report is necessary if it’s an impaired physicians program that already has a connection to the medical board. "Impaired physicians programs carefully follow those individuals," so residents in those programs aren’t reported unless they leave the program prematurely or fail to follow the aftercare program.
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