Antitrust Lawsuit Over Medical Residency System Is Dismissed
A federal district judge in Washington on Thursday dismissed an antitrust lawsuit that contended medical residents are forced to participate in a system that ensures they work long hours for low wages.
The ruling, a major setback to the two-year-old challenge to the physician training system, follows passage of a Congressional amendment to antitrust law intended to derail the case.
A central issue in the case is the system that pairs graduating medical students to slots in residency programs, commonly known as the Match. Each year, residency program applicants and hospitals rank one another in private lists submitted to the National Resident Matching Program, the private, nonprofit corporation in Washington that operates the Match. A computer then matches students to slots.
Mona Signer, director of the matching program, said of the ruling: “It is very gratifying. We are anxious to turn our full attention back to our purpose. As you can imagine, the lawsuit has been a significant diversion.”
Sherman Marek, a Chicago lawyer representing the plaintiffs, three young doctors, said that they had not decided on a response, but that they were likely to appeal the ruling or file new claims in the case.
The suit asserts that the Match, by bypassing a normal job negotiation process, adversely affects wages and working conditions. Medical residents typically earn about $40,000 annually for workweeks of up to 80 hours. The defendants say the Match is intended to help students and performs a valuable service.
Ms. Signer said the organization had to raise its fees to meet the $3.5 million in legal costs in the case.
I have commented about this case several times in the past. This lawsuit was a requested for chaos. Students and residents would have suffered greatly had this suit succeeded. The cost to the system of the suit was obviously excessive.
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3 Responses to A good decision
chris
August 14th, 2004 at 6:00 pm
I don’t understand what an alternative to the Match system would be. Are they suggesting an application system much like that of medical school? I don’t think many med students would want to go through that hell again.
Anonymous
August 15th, 2004 at 12:03 am
Thank god for the decision. The courst still have some sense, some of the time.
I am disgusted that because of the millions these idiots cost NRMP to defend this frivolous rubbish, FUTURE students going through the match will have to pay higher fees. As if they didn’t have enough debt already.
I wish we followed the UK system, where the loser pays the costs.
Equal Justice Under Law
August 15th, 2004 at 1:50 pm
> The courst still have some
> sense, some of the time.
Show some respect for the judicial system. If legislators wouldn’t write laws that were mutually contradictory, so-called “activist judges” (so-called by whomever disagrees with their interpretation of contradictory laws) wouldn’t have to resolve the contradictions. In this case, the AAMC, the NRMP, and friends secured passage of a special amendment that resolved the anti-trust question by codifying the legitamcy of the Match. There was no room for interpretation, and so the judge decided accordingly. You want absolute clarity from the judicial branch? Demand better legal writing from the legislative branch. It might help if elected officials and their staff started authoring the legislation themselves rather than leaving all the writing to lobbyists.