Tell us what’s happening. The review is free and confidential, urgent deadlines are triaged the same day, and if you need a lawyer we’ll introduce you to one at a reduced flat fee.
Resident Help is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. An intake or Record does not create an attorney-client relationship.
172,746
residents and fellows training in ACGME-accredited programs
Source: ACGME, 2025-262,531
left their programs before finishing in 2023-24
Source: ACGME Data Resource Book322
were dismissed that year, and 938 more withdrew
Source: ACGME Data Resource Book180 days
to file an EEOC discrimination charge, or 300 in many states
Source: EEOCSome programs give a resident a day or two to decide. On a J-1 or H-1B visa, a dismissal or resignation can also start a visa clock: see the Intealth (ECFMG) guide for IMGs.
A meeting with no stated subject
An odd hour, more people in the room than you expected, and someone taking notes on what you say.
Sudden administrative leave
“Paid leave” sounds harmless. It removes you from the building while a record is assembled without you.
A fitness-for-duty or drug-test referral
A forced medical exam has to be job-related and based on objective evidence, not suspicion alone.
A plan that changed after you signed it
A “revised” PIP arrives with no redline and a request to sign again. Compare before you do.
A report about a faculty member, then a PIP
You raised a concern in writing and a performance improvement plan followed. Preserve the record and raise the sequence where it counts.
A hearing where your lawyer can’t speak
You can still preserve every objection in writing, if you know to do it before you walk in.
Resign by tomorrow morning, or else
A deadline, a promise about your file, and the documents you’d need to decide, withheld.
Paperwork that appears after the decision
Evaluations dated before the events they describe. Metadata doesn’t lie, if you preserve it.
A program dismissed a resident before letting them finish a required remediation. On a written appeal, the dismissal was rescinded.
Practical Guidance
Residents put the same questions about performance improvement plans to Reddit again and again. Direct answers to six of them, with the sources and the full guides behind each.
Practical Guidance
After a dismissal notice, residents ask Reddit whether an appeal can work, whether a lawyer is worth it, and what comes after. Direct answers, with the full guides behind each.
Practical Guidance
Resign or be terminated is one of the most common crisis posts residents write on Reddit. Direct answers to the questions that come with it, with the full guides behind each.
The intake is confidential and costs nothing. And if you’re not the one in trouble, send this to the resident who is. They’ll know why you sent it.