Residency program withholding diploma/graduation certificate?

[chitown2012]

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[differentiating]

I know it’s inconvenient to go through storage to find the other required items to turn in, but you probably should. It seems like your program has made the checklist/proper turn in of hospital property a requirement for receiving your diploma, so that should be your main priority if you want your diploma to start fellowship.

My program is similar- you get your paper checking off that you met all criteria to graduate when you turn in your badge/pager/meal card/etc. So it doesn’t seem that unusual or unreasonable to me.

 

[chitown2012]

I know it’s inconvenient to go through storage to find the other required items to turn in, but you probably should. It seems like your program has made the checklist/proper turn in of hospital property a requirement for receiving your diploma, so that should be your main priority if you want your diploma to start fellowship.

My program is similar- you get your paper checking off that you met all criteria to graduate when you turn in your badge/pager/meal card/etc. So it doesn’t seem that unusual or unreasonable to me.

Well the items are in storage in a different state. We are living in one place for a month while my husband finishes his fellowship and then we are moving AGAIN to a totally new place at the end of this month.
I would have to fly back to that state to find them. It honestly seems a big ridiculous.

 

[Apollyon]

Not to sound stark and heartless, but, they said give back the ID and parking pass, and, you haven't. Modern systems can just be voided out, but, as Kevin Mitnick the hacker said, "The easiest thing I ever hacked - by far - was the wetware" ("wetware" means people). The theoretical fear could be that you would use your ID or pass to access the hospital or parking structure; even though it doesn't scan, you tell the attendant some sufficiently sad story, and they let you in. Sounds outlandish, but, I'm guessing someone did it in the past, and that's why the blanket policy exists.

I had to do it when I finished residency (the ID, of course, had my name and picture, but the parking pass was a blank, grey thing).

Is it reasonable? From their perspective, yes. They deal with tens or hundreds of grads per year, and there have been hundreds or thousands in the past. You're paying the price for someone else being sketch in prior years.

It's unfortunate, but, it is what it is.

 

[chitown2012]

Not to sound stark and heartless, but, they said give back the ID and parking pass, and, you haven't. Modern systems can just be voided out, but, as Kevin Mitnick the hacker said, "The easiest thing I ever hacked - by far - was the wetware" ("wetware" means people). The theoretical fear could be that you would use your ID or pass to access the hospital or parking structure; even though it doesn't scan, you tell the attendant some sufficiently sad story, and they let you in. Sounds outlandish, but, I'm guessing someone did it in the past, and that's why the blanket policy exists.

I had to do it when I finished residency (the ID, of course, had my name and picture, but the parking pass was a blank, grey thing).

Is it reasonable? From their perspective, yes. They deal with tens or hundreds of grads per year, and there have been hundreds or thousands in the past. You're paying the price for someone else being sketch in prior years.

It's unfortunate, but, it is what it is.

Yes but unfortunately I cannot find 2 of the badges, looked everywhere during our moving process and could not find it.

 

[Apollyon]

Yes but unfortunately I cannot find 2 of the badges, looked everywhere during our moving process and could not find it.

That's rough. To be frankly honest, at worst case, they don't give you the diploma, and you lose fellowship. They could give you an affidavit that you could sign, but there's no requirement to. From what you have posted, the hard copy is a hard stop, and you're butting up against it.

The most straightforward thing would have been to turn them in at the time. Now that that opportunity has passed, I, honestly, don't know what is your next step. Is there a hospital system ombudsman?

 

[chitown2012]

That's rough. To be frankly honest, at worst case, they don't give you the diploma, and you lose fellowship. They could give you an affidavit that you could sign, but there's no requirement to. From what you have posted, the hard copy is a hard stop, and you're butting up against it.

The most straightforward thing would have been to turn them in at the time. Now that that opportunity has passed, I, honestly, don't know what is your next step. Is there a hospital system ombudsman?

The hospital is able to turn off our ID badge access, so that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. There's literally nothing I can do with the badge once it is inactivated.
I understand a rule is a rule. Just seems heartless.

 

[Apollyon]

The hospital is able to turn off our ID badge access, so that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. There's literally nothing I can do with the badge once it is inactivated.
I understand a rule is a rule. Just seems heartless.

As I said, though, someone could manipulate the person working the desk. Since you don't sound like a scammer, this sounds foreign to you.

 

[Raryn]

I'd call and talk to your program coordinator to see what they can do. These requirements are often set on an institutional level.

I remember when I finished residency I had to go back and do every single evaluation ever assigned to me over the last 3 years before they'd let me check out. Including the ones for senior residents who had graduated and faculty that had since left. I thought it was dumb too, but they wanted to meet their institutional requirements.

If you honestly did lose the badges, I can't imagine that they'd hold your diploma hostage indefinitely, though often these places will charge some nominal fee (like $20 or whatever).

 

[chitown2012]

I'd call and talk to your program coordinator to see what they can do. These requirements are often set on an institutional level.

I remember when I finished residency I had to go back and do every single evaluation ever assigned to me over the last 3 years before they'd let me check out. Including the ones for senior residents who had graduated and faculty that had since left. I thought it was dumb too, but they wanted to meet their institutional requirements.

If you honestly did lose the badges, I can't imagine that they'd hold your diploma hostage indefinitely, though often these places will charge some nominal fee (like $20 or whatever).

I understand. I honestly didn't think this would be a requirement as my husband graduated from a diff residency program at the same hospital and never turned in a single badge or parking pass, and still 3 years later he has them.

 

[TableMD]

Turn in/obtain whatever you can. Whatever you lost, obtain new copies of, such as IDs from your residency hospital’s security service. It seems asinine to fly to a state, pay for a new ID and then hand it in as opposed to just having it get deactivated over the phone but it’s your career.

Pay the money, make the trip and put this garbage behind you so you can focus on being a mom and your fellowship without this hanging over you.

If you have to get a loan for the ticked then do it, hell you could go first class and get a massage while you are there just get it done ASAP and start the year right.

Never underestimate the capacity for nonclinician admins to:
1. Screw you over
2. Not give a **** about unique parameters of your situation that would merit bending the rules
3. Be inflexible

Since you are going to be a fellow, odds are you will be with some health system/hospital entity so you might as well learn that lesson now.

 

[chitown2012]

Turn in/obtain whatever you can. Whatever you lost, obtain new copies of, such as IDs from your residency hospital’s security service. It seems asinine to fly to a state, pay for a new ID and then hand it in as opposed to just having it get deactivated over the phone but it’s your career.

Pay the money, make the trip and put this garbage behind you so you can focus on being a mom and your fellowship without this hanging over you.

If you have to get a loan for the ticked then do it, hell you could go first class and get a massage while you are there just get it done ASAP and start the year right.

Never underestimate the capacity for nonclinician admins to:
1. Screw you over
2. Not give a **** about unique parameters of your situation that would merit bending the rules
3. Be inflexible

Since you are going to be a fellow, odds are you will be with some health system/hospital entity so you might as well learn that lesson now.

It's just impossible though. My husband is a surg critical care fellow so I am watching baby almost 24/7 We live here with no family/friends nearby to watch baby if I needed to go somewhere.
Well thank you.

 

[Iamnew2]

The hospital is able to turn off our ID badge access, so that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. There's literally nothing I can do with the badge once it is inactivated.
I understand a rule is a rule. Just seems heartless.

It is a little heartless but we had a similar thing at most of the places I worked at - they would withhold diploma until all things were completed. If you lose your badge though I am not sure that they couldn't just log it as lost and maybe charge you something. I couldn't imagine them legally being able to withhold a diploma over a lost badge or two? Granted this should have been done before - did you let your PD know that it was lost? Did you send the other stuff next day?

 

[GoSpursGo]

First of all, I do think this is unreasonable of your program and I'm sorry you're going through this. That said, it doesn't really help you if I think they're being unreasonable because they get to make the rules. You have a number of very good reasons for being in the situation that you're in, but at the end of the day you just need to suck it up and do what you need to do, because as you said you and your family are depending on you to do it.

You need to get on the phone with your residency PC/PD and figure out what you can do to appease them. This is one of those scenarios where one 10 minute phone call will likely be much more effective than 10 emails going back and forth. Keep in mind that it's possible their hands could be tied from a level above the program (ie it could be a GME or school or medicine policy that they can't waive). But the sooner you get on the phone with them, the sooner you can figure out how to resolve the issue. Lead with the fact that you have legitimately lost some of these items. Worst case scenario, you can actually fly with an infant in tow. From personal experience I will say it isn't especially fun to do so, but again, you have to do what you have to do.

Finally, after you have that phone call, you also probably need to call your fellowship PC and let them know about this situation. I think it is highly, highly unlikely that you will lose your fellowship, but they need to be aware that this issue could wind up delaying your start, and the sooner you communicate this possibility with them the less frustrated they are likely to be with you.

 

[Raryn]

I understand. I honestly didn't think this would be a requirement as my husband graduated from a diff residency program at the same hospital and never turned in a single badge or parking pass, and still 3 years later he has them.

Policies change.

They almost certainly can't indefinitely not give you your diploma, whether you lost your parking permit or not. You may just need to jump through some hoops to get it in a timely fashion.

I promise you, five years from now (or one year from now), this scenario will be barely a blip on your radar. But right now, you need to figure out how to make that true in future hindsight.

 

[RangerBob]

Agree with the above--call your old program, tell them what happened, that you lost the badges, etc.

Many things can be sorted out with just an explanation. Ignoring the problem isn't going to make it go away.

 

[Crayola227]

I agree this is a bit ridiculous and draconian. But there's not much you can do beyond make sure you communicate clearly with your fellowship program and your old program, in person or by phone preferably (I would also send emails as that can be proof of communication albeit communication less likely to actually resolve this).

Do NOT go into still having these items in storage or any such nonsense. The items are gone, they're never coming back, you have no idea where they are. Don't try to obtain another set that is equally ridiculous. You're hardly the first resident in history to lose a badge ffs.

You may have to talk to security or go through some filing process to establish the badges being officially lost.

It doesn't sound like you can get around the checklist thing, but still. You can mail things for a reasonable price to be overnighted or guaranteed within a certain number of days. Not sure where you live but lots of USPS business can be done online or post offices have after hours access to some of the specialty envelopes and vending machines for purchasing special things like tracking. When you're stressed about mail being lost I highly recommend getting more acquainted with the services USPS or Fedex or UPS has to offer and it isn't usually that onerous. And Fedex or UPS also has online services and after hours solutions. It might cost you $25-50 going this route, but isn't that cheap in the big picture?

Get them their damn checklist. As far as the items you lost they will have to bend on it.

Otherwise throw yourself on the mercy of your fellowship and residency about the lost items and delay with this.

If you communicate with everyone, from your old PD/PC and the security office (or whoever for lost badges) and the GME office, and you get nowhere with getting your diploma, I would as a last resort drop into the conversation that you are considering getting a lawyer to obtain your diploma. Everyone says don't lawyer up and I would agree except if it really seems that without one your program is well and truly committed to dicking you over. At the point you have nothing to lose it's possible they will decide it isn't worth it and someone will just rubberstamp you getting the diploma.

But I would be prepared to follow through on the threat and look into getting a lawyer. It's free to find one generally, and most initial consults can be had for free. In the age of covid you can often have a phone or zoom consult, and possibly after hours. Phone calls to find if an office can help you are fast. Email works for this too. If not a free consult often it's discounted at $100 for an hour. Most attorneys are about $250 an hour and they're not going to have to spend much time scaring the program into giving you the diploma.

I'm not a lawyer, but I predict they can't hold your diploma indefinitely provided you have given them their checklist (a reasonable requirement you can control) but I can't imagine it would fly in court keeping it over a lost badge (totally unreasonable). But you need to establish those items as irretrievable and you need to comply with the rest of their boxticking.

 

[j4pac]

Just do what you they want and do it quickly. You shouldn’t even be on SDN asking this question...you should be contacting everyone possible at the institute and program to resolve the issue. Seems like you didn’t take things seriously, thinking the “I have a baby” gimmick will let you off. They called your bluff...now pay the piper.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

The advice here is solid. Exactly because of situations like this, we often deal with the offboarding issues while the woman is admitted post partum. I feel bad about it, but it saves so much trouble and problems down the line.

The program isn't being unreasonable. They want their property back. You had plenty of time to deal with this.

Your husband's situation -- still having all badges -- may be the exact reason they started this policy. It's not an excuse.

Lot's of things you could have done differently. You should have shipped this with a tracking number and overnight. UPS will pick up packages from your home. Someone else could have taken the envelope to a FedEx, USPS, or UPS office. You could have done so with the baby yourself. The list goes on.

But what's in the past is done. Looking forward:

They won't hold your diploma hostage forever. They can't -- they can't ruin your career because you didn't turn in a badge. You don't need to fly back there -- that's crazy. You don't need a lawyer.

You do need to contact them, It's now friday night, you should have done this already earlier this week. Now you'll need to wait the weekend, and deal with it 8AM on Monday. On the phone (or video call) with your old program. Then you contact your new program and tell them your diploma is going to be late. You're unlikely to lose your fellowship spot over this, but your start may be delayed. Ultimately your program will give you your diploma.

Given this story, I'm going to take a wild guess: I expect you had lots of administrative problems in residency. Getting evals in, duty hours logged, inbasket emptied, learning modules completed, etc. If so, I expect your program may drag their feet. If you didn't have admin issues prior, they would probably cut you more slack. They could overnight your diploma to you. Or, they could put it in an envelope and place it in a bin to go down to the mail room for processing, get a stamp put on it, in the mail, and you'll see it in a week. If you treated the program admins well, they would likely do the first. if you have increased their workload by being late with everything and forcing them to chase you down, I'd expect the latter. Maybe I'm wrong. But looking at your past post history, I'm pretty sure I'm right.

 

[Iamnew2]

Just do what you they want and do it quickly. You shouldn’t even be on SDN asking this question...you should be contacting everyone possible at the institute and program to resolve the issue. Seems like you didn’t take things seriously, thinking the “I have a baby” gimmick will let you off. They called your bluff...now pay the piper.

While the baby situation is reasonable, and I'm sure it's tough with a new baby, OP was on maternity leave for a while. As a woman myself, I do find it silly that other women make it seem as if being pregnant or having a baby is like a disability or something that makes life impossible to manage. Yes it's busy, yes you are sleep deprived, yes the baby cries, is hungry, lots of poopie diapers, but life doesn't stop - and billions of women around the world do it every single day - many without any help. Just a thought. It's turning in a badge - not some crazy expectation. It is super simple to do and return and make the program happy.

 

[Bobblehead]

I understand it is my fault 100% for not taking care of this before we moved. But I didn't and there's nothing I can do about it. Is it reasonable for my program to withhold my diploma like this?

Situations like this are why you don't blow off institutional/corporate busywork. Get your stuff out of storage. Make an honest attempt at trying to find the items that you were supposed to return.

In your future career do your annual compliance items. Finish the mandatory annual training items when they tell you they are due.

Or you can figure out how to cope when your computer access gets turned off at the worst moment, you stop getting paid while you complete your compliance items, lose part of your annual bonus, lose benefits temporarily etc.

 

[Crayola227]

Situations like this are why you don't blow off institutional/corporate busywork. Get your stuff out of storage. Make an honest attempt at trying to find the items that you were supposed to return.

In your future career do your annual compliance items. Finish the mandatory annual training items when they tell you they are due.

Or you can figure out how to cope when your computer access gets turned off at the worst moment, you stop getting paid while you complete your compliance items, lose part of your annual bonus, lose benefits temporarily etc.

To be fair flying to another state to get items out of storage with a baby in tow sounds pretty unreasonable. The badges can be made obsolete and as long as the day OP ever comes across them again she turns them in or destroys them there's really no harm done, even in this world of scammers.

I don't blame the OP for the badge misplacement debacle - baby, sleep deprivation, moving, storage unit, just about anyone could misplace something.

Not turning in that form OTOH, there's no good reason for that and you can't expect anything good to come of such a thing.

Iirc we started our residencies and THEN had to bring in the hard copies of our med school diplomas to be photocopied. It's possible this delays fellowship start, but otoh the fellowship has some skin in the fight and might be willing to take steps for some other way of confirming the OP's residency completion, for example they may call the other PD. It isn't guaranteed but if they really want OP to start on time there may be some latitude on this. Or not, hard to say but worth asking.

 

[Vandalia]

You have learned a fundamental rule of medicine: The rules matter.

Physicians are expected to strictly follow the rules. Excuses for failing to do so will fall on deaf ears.

I had a former colleague who was fined and reprimanded by the state medical board. His offense? He finished the 1 hour on "end of life" CME thirty minutes too early. It was supposed to be completed being July 1 and June 30. He completed it at 2330 on June 30 before that time frame started. He was unlucky enough to have his CME audited.

Too bad. They said it must be done during that time period. The fact that he did it before the time period stated meant he did not do it.

When in the medical profession they say "You must do X, Y, and Z" they mean do "X, Y and Z." The profession simply does not accept excuses.

 

[Smurfette]

Do you need the actual diploma to start your fellowship? I feel like my diploma was mailed to me later, so people starting fellowships wouldn't have gotten them before their start day anyhow. That being said, I fully remember myself and my co-residents running around doing all the last minute stuff before graduation including dropping various things off in various offices. I don't think any of us thought of it as optional.

 

[rokshana]

I understand. I honestly didn't think this would be a requirement as my husband graduated from a diff residency program at the same hospital and never turned in a single badge or parking pass, and still 3 years later he has them.

Yet YOU didn’t go to that residency program and the program you did go to actually told you what you needed to do…
Not really sure why you think your inability to follow simple directions is some how their issue.

yes, it is reasonable for a program to give you a list of requirements to finish your residency and if you don’t fulfill them, for there to be consequences.

the obstacles in front of you are placed there by you… and pointing out that you think that they are being unreasonable because their rules are inconvenient to you…well… it’s a bit entitled.

find the stuff on the check list…FED EX it so it can be tracked…and ask them what,if anything, you need to do to get your certificate… realize that you will be asked for that certificate for the rest of your professional life… licensing boards, hospitals credentialing boards, etc will want proof that you actually completed a residency…it’s not just your fellowship and health insurance at risk.

 

[Iamnew2]

Do you need the actual diploma to start your fellowship? I feel like my diploma was mailed to me later, so people starting fellowships wouldn't have gotten them before their start day anyhow. That being said, I fully remember myself and my co-residents running around doing all the last minute stuff before graduation including dropping various things off in various offices. I don't think any of us thought of it as optional.

The day I finished residency I made sure I had everything checked off or signed of as I was jetting off to Europe and cringed at the thought of my resident coordinator being like you complete pointless task x? In fact I started doing this weeks before I was done.

 

[Apollyon]

I'm just going to say that everyone has said their piece, but, I'm predicting, with the piling on going on, the OP is unlikely to return.

 

[chitown2012]

The advice here is solid. Exactly because of situations like this, we often deal with the offboarding issues while the woman is admitted post partum. I feel bad about it, but it saves so much trouble and problems down the line.

The program isn't being unreasonable. They want their property back. You had plenty of time to deal with this.

Your husband's situation -- still having all badges -- may be the exact reason they started this policy. It's not an excuse.

Lot's of things you could have done differently. You should have shipped this with a tracking number and overnight. UPS will pick up packages from your home. Someone else could have taken the envelope to a FedEx, USPS, or UPS office. You could have done so with the baby yourself. The list goes on.

But what's in the past is done. Looking forward:

They won't hold your diploma hostage forever. They can't -- they can't ruin your career because you didn't turn in a badge. You don't need to fly back there -- that's crazy. You don't need a lawyer.

You do need to contact them, It's now friday night, you should have done this already earlier this week. Now you'll need to wait the weekend, and deal with it 8AM on Monday. On the phone (or video call) with your old program. Then you contact your new program and tell them your diploma is going to be late. You're unlikely to lose your fellowship spot over this, but your start may be delayed. Ultimately your program will give you your diploma.

Given this story, I'm going to take a wild guess: I expect you had lots of administrative problems in residency. Getting evals in, duty hours logged, inbasket emptied, learning modules completed, etc. If so, I expect your program may drag their feet. If you didn't have admin issues prior, they would probably cut you more slack. They could overnight your diploma to you. Or, they could put it in an envelope and place it in a bin to go down to the mail room for processing, get a stamp put on it, in the mail, and you'll see it in a week. If you treated the program admins well, they would likely do the first. if you have increased their workload by being late with everything and forcing them to chase you down, I'd expect the latter. Maybe I'm wrong. But looking at your past post history, I'm pretty sure I'm right.

No I didn’t have lots of administrative issues to my knowledge. Aside from a blip at the end of the year (which is in my post history) regarding our sick call, I generally did what I was told and didn’t make a fuss about things.

If I was causing administrative issues, it was never brought to my attention.
No one ever mentioned issues in my performance evals. In fact I generally received pretty good evals and performed above average on my ITE’s.

I see what you are saying that I am acting entitled. Yes I should’ve done things differently. I should’ve taken this more seriously. But I didn’t. And I hope they will take mercy on me. I don’t believe I’m a resident with a history of issues. I was never on probation or anything like that.

 

[Apollyon]

Thanks for closing the loop. I was just feeling like the comments were getting heavy. Best of luck!

 

[NotAProgDirector]

No I didn’t have lots of administrative issues to my knowledge. Aside from a blip at the end of the year (which is in my post history) regarding our sick call, I generally did what I was told and didn’t make a fuss about things.

If I was causing administrative issues, it was never brought to my attention.
No one ever mentioned issues in my performance evals. In fact I generally received pretty good evals and performed above average on my ITE’s.

I see what you are saying that I am acting entitled. Yes I should’ve done things differently. I should’ve taken this more seriously. But I didn’t. And I hope they will take mercy on me. I don’t believe I’m a resident with a history of issues. I was never on probation or anything like that.

Well that's good then. I'm happy to be wrong. The better your performance prior to this, the more flex they are going to give you. Best of luck.

 

[j4pac]

No I didn’t have lots of administrative issues to my knowledge. Aside from a blip at the end of the year (which is in my post history) regarding our sick call, I generally did what I was told and didn’t make a fuss about things.

If I was causing administrative issues, it was never brought to my attention.
No one ever mentioned issues in my performance evals. In fact I generally received pretty good evals and performed above average on my ITE’s.

I see what you are saying that I am acting entitled. Yes I should’ve done things differently. I should’ve taken this more seriously. But I didn’t. And I hope they will take mercy on me. I don’t believe I’m a resident with a history of issues. I was never on probation or anything like that.

If this mindset carries over to your rapid communication with your program and institute, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Hopefully this will be just a temporary, stressful lesson learned. Good luck!