Resident complaint system is improved

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education toughens due process standards but allows programs some flexibility.

By Jay Greene, AMNews staff. June 25, 2001.

Looking to bring more fairness to the resident complaint process, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has taken steps to increase due process procedures for residents who are terminated or not invited back for another year.

"This issue came about because residents were notified their contract would not be renewed and were not given adequate time to explore other positions," said David Leach, MD, ACGME executive director.

In a major change, all 7,600 accredited residency programs are now required to give a resident written notice of intent not to renew a contract four months before it expires. Because most annual contracts end in June, a four-month notice would give residents time to participate in the March Match process, Dr. Leach said.

But the ACGME also gave programs flexibility to avoid the four-month notice period if the primary reason for nonrenewal occurred during the four months before the contract expires. Residents also must be allowed to implement an institution's grievance procedures when they have received a nonrenewal notice.

In addition, the ACGME created a centralized residency complaint database and released, for the first time, the number and nature of resident complaints, Dr. Leach said.

From January 1998 through September 2000, the ACGME received a total of 86 complaints, some of which involved multiple alleged violations. [...]