How a teaching hospital implemented its termination policies for disruptive residents

The development of Policy Standards for Termination that both protect and support residents while safeguarding sponsoring institutions has become increasingly necessary. To date, however, there has been little in the literature that discusses policies that have undergone thorough testing to the highest levels of the U.S. judicial system. Berkshire Medical Center (BMC), an acute-care community teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Massachusetts Medical School, developed a set of specific policies to cope fairly with the resident dismissal process. The authors describe a nine-year legal test of these policies in the case of a resident whose disruptive behavior required their implementation. Also presented is a summary of due process as it applies in such cases. The dismissed resident tested the policies through the Courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts all the way to the United States Supreme Court, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents. At every level the termination action was upheld. The resident had previously been in two graduate medical education programs at other institutions, and neither of them had communicated issues of concern that would have forewarned BMC's program about potential problems. A plea for honest and open communication between programs is made. This may help to avoid the lengthy, expensive, and potentially serious consequences of such situations. However, the authors emphasize that when such situations arise, strong policies serve as an ultimate legal protection.