Thread: student sues UAG in TX court

2011CI14306

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS INC

DEFENDANT

PE
vs SL ET AL

285

08/31/2011

OTHER CONTRACT

PENDING

I will go into detail in later posts, I also edit names to comply with forum ruels

The Goodbye, Part 1: Leaving Mexico
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The title says it all in a nutshell. The details are fodder for a movie if some screenwriter/filmmaker could work some of that Hollywood “suspension of belief” magic.

So after blogging about things in December here before, as well as going on the radio about my problems with school, with the Christmas holiday break looming, the heat went up in the kitchen–way up. Every day was some setback, some new depth of laziness and ineptitude by school officials uncovered, each of which could have been a blog entry in itself. However, as anybody can see, the site has been near-dormant for the last 6 weeks or so with the exception of occaisional “fluff” posts and status updates. I had been trying to do the right thing and not publish something I’d regret later, as well as not plunge this blog into uncomfortable negativism and hostility.

Well, there’s nothing more on the line to worry about regretting, that’s for sure. However, to actually catch up to give everything that’s happened justice (and it’s not just about me, believe it or not :P ) will take a couple more posts, so please bear with me. I promise I won’t dwell on my problems forever; in fact, I am looking forward to putting all of this behind me in my daily life, even if I’ll be dealing with the financial, academic, and some of the emotional consequences for a very, very long time.

So first, the good news: the school’s financial committee decided to forgive the debt representing the tuition of the semester I didn’t attend. This would seem like an obvious slamdunk decision, and indeed, that’s what I was expecting back in November. However, I was told this after classes began in January (knowing full well the decision came in December; they just waited for either laziness or spite), so that’s already strike one. I said publicly that no decision before the break was a “no” decision, because I couldn’t be on pins and needles with no loan money, no job, and risk things not working out in the end, spending what little money was left in the meantime just waiting (rent, etc.) Therefore, I fully expected to come back to gather my things and leave with whatever means I could, even if it meant just practically giving stuff away and leaving with what could fit in the cars.

And now, the bad news: a faceless, secret committee mentioned before has for sure sealed my fate by deciding that I could not re-enroll for school–even if things worked out with the financial committee–because of “my attitude.” Yes, those last two words in quotes were given to me verbatim. But not by anybody with authority–oh no. This was given to me by a minion (who I later found out was just as miffed at having to deal with this bullpooh pooh almost as much as I was) who was allegedly told this by a representative of said committee. I mentioned this on the radio show linked above, but I hadn’t really uncovered the festering rot that is at the core of the wretched institution quite yet, so I thought that it was all a matter of just ruffled feathers over something (I had no idea what–still don’t), and that the appropriate “mea culpa”/”I’m sorry” would suffice to stroke the ego/whims of whatever muckety muck that got their short-and-curlies caught in their zipper. Whatever “attitude” they could be referring to was clearly unwarranted. Had I threatened, been insubordinate, disresepectful to a professor/dean or the like, I’d understand at least, “Oh yeah, it was probably that,” but honestly nothing even close to any of that has ever happened. My frustration in dealing with all this was obvious, but I never “let loose,” so to speak, to anyone.

Unfortunately, I found out that my being asked to leave went much deeper and was more sinister than a simple misunderstanding or the like. The “secret” committee that I have been talking about actually has a name: “Honor y Justicia” (“Honor and Justice”). Can you believe that pooh pooh?! What kind of “justice” exists when an entire committee of unnamed, unreachable faculty and administrators meet to try, sentence and seal your fate without even letting you know until after the fact? And what input could one give if one isn’t even made aware that there are “charges” or problems in the first place? I would imagine a committee like this would deal with serious infractions of honor, integrity, or ethics. However, there are students who have been caught cheating–red handed–and they are not expelled; everyone who goes to school here knows exactly what I’m talking about. Oh, but I’m told I can’t come back. What did I do that’s worse than cheating?! To make matters worse, my repeated requests to get something in writing stating this fact have been denied. Just two days ago, I asked Ms. Red Flowers, the director of International Student Affairs, in person (by finally barging into her office since her pit bull secretary wasn’t there to close her door upon seeing me as usual) yet again, and to my face she told me that she has nothing in writing, and that “We could ask the committee to provide something, but it would be up to them.” When I asked which committee, she replied she didn’t know. To my face.

But the greatest breach of confidence and trust truly came from dean/director Dr. Multiple Sclerosis (MS), as I’ve blogged before, pretending to know nothing. In spite of knowing exactly what kind of student I am and professes these excellent qualities himself, Dr. MS said not just to me, but to my wife that he knew nothing of any such decision to prevent me from re-enrolling but also that he would not be willing to follow up on it. Dr. MS said, “I don’t know where this comes from. But perhaps it comes from a committee called “Honor y Justicia“. This was the first I’d heard of this “committee” and I could scarcely believe my ears.

He continued, “Remember when I talked to you in July about some things you wrote online? I sat you down and explained things [read: droned uselessly--see link] because I know that you are very smart, an excellent student, and that you were just confused and need to be educated on things that you may not be aware of. Perhaps others weren’t so understanding, and maybe that’s where the problems come from. Perhaps. But I don’t know for sure.”

If I am so smart, then don’t you think I’d be able to see through this lamely constructed veil of false deniability? Moreover, how impotent/incompetent can this guy be if an entity outside the School of Medicine is totally going over his head to screw with me and him not even know it? On the flip side, if I’m such a good student, like he says, why is there no outrage at 1) the fact that someone is meddling on his turf from the outside and/or 2) that one of his students is being ramrodded? Because he knows full makin loveg well indeed and is lying to my face–and not just him, one of his lapdog minions, Dr. WolfCamp, who should know even less since I’ve never had anything to do with him academically, but had quite a few things to say about something that he also claimed to know nothing about.

Between the lies and the outright refusal (with my wife as my witness) to help me in any way shape or form at this December meeting, any and all respect I had for anything at this school was gone. My personal decision was made before I left for Christmas break that things were done with this school. That’s what these monkeys don’t understand: I’m playing for keeps–this is my financial future, my wife, my child, my career. For them, I’m an account number and more dollars to add to the slush fund. There are students who literally go four years here, never having passed Step 1. I pooh pooh you not. Does the school give a rat’s ***? No, because they keep collecting their tuition money without a care in the world that maybe–just maybe–they need a “time out” by force to get their stuff done. Students are a disposable commodity to them–much easily discarded if, like me, they seem to present a “problem” to administration–since there are so many willing, naive students ready to take any given place.

But are there so many eager students? What if the well of students who would want to come here would run dry? That’s the real-life drama of the next installment.

Ok lets start with student number 1, for those students who remember him, his name was EC. Back in 2007, he posted information about his experience while attending uag ,on his blog site, mexican medical student. While still a student at UAG, Dr M called him into his office for what EC understood to be a meeting to discuss his attendence. Turns out the sinister Dr M had other ideas. To make a long story short, when EC refused to take down his postings, the school made the decision to throw EC, a student with a wife and son, out of UAG for failing to fill out proper paperwork. Now Dr M actually has very little power at UAG, this decision was most like made by Mrs Red flowers(akaAR) or the school president. The above named committee Honor y Justicia” (“Honor and Justice”) never actually met or gave EC the option of defending himself in person. Honor and justice, more like injustice and no honor, the unoffical Alma Mata of UAG school of medicine.

Multi-Update II: Not protecting my school anymore, Part 2
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Thanks to those of you who actually took the time to read the first part; this conclusion is an easier read, but it’s so unbelievable that it needed to stand on its own. (and for ease of printing, as you shall see) When I met with Dr. M., as you might recall, I got this line about how, in spite of my solid performance on the Kaplan final and my overall grades, student record, etc., the committee said in no uncertain terms that they were there to discuss my absences, and nothing else. While Dr. M. personally took up my cause because of those factors, he maintained there was nothing he could do to simply overlook the situation. But it was never about overlooking the situation; it was about objectively and appropriately applying the established factors to honestly reduce the total to the real number that didn’t deserve sanction.

Given this, it should shock you almost as much as it did me, that in the second meeting I wrote about, he pulled out printouts of various blog posts from this site, saying, “I got these today [same day as meeting], and I had no idea you wrote about these things. Why would you say this, [quoting from an underlined section of the page]?”

My brain was a short-circuit of various neural firings, but among them was the statement, “Holy pooh pooh, I’ve been Butterflied!!” As I started to make sense of the situation, though, it was obvious that those printouts were calculated moves on the part of someone in administration to subvert the “fairness” of this disciplinary process. I say that because the posts in question were within the last week or two of the meeting; it was not an exhaustive collection of postings over time. Obviously, the timing of their submission had an obvious intent. Since up to now I haven’t “unprofessionally” ranted about the school, there was nothing, honestly, to defend. I was asked why, in my post about ending 2nd year, I referred to the “hell of basic science curriculum.” HELLO!?!? There isn’t a med student on earth that in their 4th year says, “You know, I’d really like to be back in that genetics class…it was so much more interesting than all this clinical crap.” How blind can one be?

He then proceeds to read two of the posts in front of me, even pointing out things that are funny (“Why thank you… *eyeroll*…”) and asking pointless questions about why I said this or that. After two or so questions, I finally said, “That [pointing to printout] has absolutely nothing to do with why we’re here. I’m not going to discuss why I wrote this or that on my own time. It’s my online journal; I say what I want from my perspective, not claiming to be any official voice of the university. It’s my experiences from my point of view, and I don’t have to justify them to anyone.”

Not expecting such a firm response, I suppose, he put the papers back in the manila folders from whence they came, and defensively said, “No, no, we aren’t saying you can’t say these things, just–why didn’t you come to us first? [You mean like trying to get an honest answer of why the first two years of med school suck?!? LOL!] He took umbrage that I insinuated that the school didn’t have problem-based learning (PBL) because it wasn’t progressive enough, because they apparently did try it a while back, and gave me a long history of curriculum changes…

What the Sam Holy Hell does this have to do with my Kaplan absences!?!?

He also made mention of something else in the committee which will shock and amaze you. I suffer from iron-deficiency anemia; I’ve mentioned it here in passing before. With our cover-nothing-other-than-broken-bones student insurance, I don’t have money right now for a thorough workup and get roto-rootered from both ends, which will inevitably need to happen, since a guiac was negative x3 (and false negatives are common). In my “meta letter” to the committee summarizing the other letters, I mentioned my fatigue due to anemia, etc. by request of Dr. M., since it had bearing on why I missed some days, given all the other stuff was going on. I provided lab values in the letter to show long-standing, marked iron depletion.

Do you know what this one person said on the committee? “These numbers are false. There is no way he could have a Hgb of 10.8 and an MCV of 66, because he’s an adult.” In spite of having a table full of MDs (including Dr.M.), since apparently this proclamation came from one who had more of an authoritative background on this subject, Dr.M. said they all just shrugged their shoulders and left the subject alone, not knowing what to make of the situation.

“I’ll provide the labwork if you want!” I protested.
“No, no, that’s OK,” he said.

Ok for you, maybe, but since when is it OK to make an accusation against a student of essentially fabricating medical data, therefore eliminating that “asset” to my defense, and then wave your hand and say, “No, no, you don’t need to defend yourself; we didn’t pursue the matter further.” Thank God whoever that ignoramus is, he’s not my doctor. I’d probably exanguinate myself and he’d sit there denying it, “No, no, this isn’t possible for an adult.” I’m a medical student and I know better.

All these letters, all these meetings, eradicating up my USMLE timing…what has been the whole point if they aren’t going to take each case individually on its own merit? My outcome would have been no different than if they had just rigidly, universally applied the rules to everyone, regardless…except that a good number of students whose absence % was technically below the threshold, but whose total number didn’t raise any flags, went home happily to enjoy their vacations. I, on the other hand, had my grade in one class, in effect, erased, and need to take an exam to replace it. And one wonders why I’m almost paralyzed with stress, anger, grief, injustice, etc.?!?

And a special message to the professor (I assume) who turned in my blog posts to Dr. M.: you embarass yourself by showing how much time you have on your hands. Since you have an office, title, salary, etc. what does that say to your superiors about your having so little to do, so little worth to justify your paycheck, that you have stooped to monitoring external websites of students? I don’t know if this was a one-time dig or the start of an FBI-watch-list-like monitoring protocol, but for the love of God, please grow up and find something better to do. Like your real job.
P.S. I point out that to this date, no member of school administration, faculty or staff has yet to ever offer me once ounce or asked if I’ve received any administrative advice knowing my legal situation with the car accident, helpful financial aid advice knowing my situation with money, and most egregiously, not a single makin loveg word about my health. It is almost contrary to any ethical standard that amongst a room full of physicians, seeing lab values that clearly indicate a problem, not one of them says, “We need to tell this kid to see a GI specialist,” much less actually help with that process. No, instead, I’m called a liar and punished for my pale, tachycardic *** not being in class. I am wasting no more words on this.

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P.S. I point out that to this date, no member of school administration, faculty or staff has yet to ever offer me once ounce or asked if I’ve received any administrative advice knowing my legal situation with the car accident, helpful financial aid advice knowing my situation with money, and most egregiously, not a single makin loveg word about my health. It is almost contrary to any ethical standard that amongst a room full of physicians, seeing lab values that clearly indicate a problem, not one of them says, “We need to tell this kid to see a GI specialist,” much less actually help with that process. No, instead, I’m called a liar and punished for my pale, tachycardic *** not being in class. I am wasting no more words on this.

categories Living in Mexico, Medical School, Personal | enrico | datetime July 3, 2007 11:01 pm

Thanks to all who showed up last night for the live broadcast! Dr.A. would have to confirm this for sure, but I think that the chatroom peaked to its highest number so far for the show…that’s awesome! For those that didn’t get to tune in, the archive is #18 and is available at Dr.A.’s BTR site (until the next show, this episode starts playing automatically from a widget on the right, but you can always download the .mp3 file to listen offline as well).

I listened to most of the show already, and I’m slightly embarrassed of the times that it seems that I’m ignoring Dr.A’s quick questions. As was brought up in the chat room after the show, Dr.A was using a new headset, and apparently the mic volume wasn’t turned up enough. (This can be heard in the difference between our respective volumes on the archive.) However, when I was talking in real-time on the call, I swear I couldn’t hear most of the attempts when Dr. A. would make a quick 1-second question. On the archive, one can hear it objectively (ie, not talking at the time), and it sounds like I’m bulldozing over what he was saying. I promise that wasn’t the case. :/ I hope Dr. A. understands.

The universal advice I’ve received before, during, and after regarding my situation is, to be polite, “Do whatever it takes to get things fixed.” I agree, and I never intended to do otherwise. It’s also why I never complained online until the other day even though I’ve been going through this for 6 weeks now. I don’t want to get into specifics, but there is a very real chance that this will not be resolved to my benefit, and I have to start down the road of a “Plan B,” even though I can’t say for sure what that is yet.

Even though absolutely nothing has changed with school, I already feel SO much better having put all of this out there. The consequences/implications/etc. have been shouldered in private for too long and have gotten me absolutely nowhere. Things can’t get worse with school–they simply could say that all of this online shenanigans “prevented” them from giving me their Holy Dispensation, but that’s yet another abusive tactic because one can never know if that were true. The intended effect is drive a student into despair over “what could have been;” in my case, I simply go on the alternative course I’m already pursuing. The default answers have never changed from “no,” and “no.”

I’m not above groveling, but how can I grovel to a person that refuses to meet with me, that tells a “superior” at the hospital that I’ll be seen, then 10 minutes later tell me (through the inept secretary) that there’s no point in seeing me? I’ve never been able to break through this, so what do I do, kneel in supplication from the hallway and hope they see me on the way to a bathroom break? Video myself begging and send a YouTube clip to their email address? If this turns out to be about “Well, we’re offended that you didn’t do XYZ in person,” then their hypocrisy is one for the record books.

I have to work, and time spent sitting in a hallway on the off-chance said dictator may/may not be coming to the office that afternoon, combined with may/may not be willing to see me is time I’m not billing, money I’m not making to support my family in the absence of loans to fall back on. Every dollar in my bank account is because I worked for it this semester. Talk about responsibility–what respect is there for that? They seem to think I’m at their complete convenience (and sport), and as a lowly student, that’s true–to a point. They know I’m working, they know I have a family to support, they just “forget” (or don’t care) that it’s not all about me. If they’re going to be insulted because I make a phone call to check if they’ll be in before I waste hours (read: earned money) going to and from, waiting, etc. and make that a daily habit, they can do something “creatively promiscuous” with their expectations.

UAG may be trying to teach me a lesson, beat me down, whatever, but to what end? I’m playing for keeps, and here’s why:

I don’t have the luxury of wasting time. I am willing to sacrifice whatever of myself, but there’s a limit to what I’m willing to put them through. This isn’t about principle vs. pride. Steeped in old Mexican medical school traditions at the core (primarily dealing with 18-year-olds), UAG feels it’s their job to “teach” me humility, maturity and responsibility with their tactics.

Those two above teach me more about those in one day than any amount of passive-agressive bullpooh pooh by administration. The two above is where my faith, my hope, and my pride lie, not my school. If I’m going to sacrifice any part of myself further, it’s for them, not for the whims of UAG. My school is a replaceable commodity; they are not. If this constitutes my “bad attitude,” then so be it. Regardless of my financial debt, I will always remain far richer than UAG could ever be.

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Tags: family, radio, UAG

categories Fatherhood, Living in Mexico, Medical School, Personal | enrico | datetime December 14, 2007

The above posting is EC discussing how he decided to ngo public with his issue AND THIS IS HOW ONE OF UAG'S OWNERS RESPONDED TO EC, and who is it, none other then case defendent SL

By Susana, December 14, 2007 @ 5:28 pm

I’ve read quite a few of your posts and it seems like you are always complaining about UAG. You make it seem like the university is out to get you for some unknown reason. I don’t understand why you feel you should receive special traeatment because you work, have debt, a family, etc.

Wake up, there are thousands of students who have problems and don’t expect their school to hold their hand and guide them. I think these are all excuses beacuse you just don’t have what it takes to do the work and graduate. You couldn’t do it in the US and thought that med school in Mexico would be easy. Surprise! Its not easy. Furthermore, there’s thousands of Mexican students wanting to be accepted into med school and you are just taking up space whining. If you can’t even deal with going to school, how do you expect to deal with real life?

By enrico, December 14, 2007 @ 9:35 pm

Abel: Thanks again for your comments. What you shared about your daughter was most touching.

Dr. A., Sean, Vijay, AMom, etc. Thanks! Other than a couple of potential meetings, the way this plays out is no longer in my hands. There is a strange liberation one reaches when one honestly, truly has exhausted all that can be done. Rather than stress about what I can’t change, I’m simply going to enjoy my weekend. That’s the plan, anyway…

Susana: Thank you for giving me even more hope! (When trolls come by, that means the message is reaching beyond one’s “safe zone” of friends, associates, etc. It’s a sign that the word is “out,” so to speak.) Your statements are so ridiculous that it shows you haven’t read (or understood) anything, as you said. Six weeks ago, a comment like this would have been logically deconstructed with surgical precision. Today, by contrast, my attitude is that I’ve wasted too much time just typing this…lucky you.


this was EC's response

Future students - UAG plays hardball. Never get on their radar. These fresas know how to hold a grudge, besides it beats doing their job.

I knew of this student before I came here. I don't agree with his actions but I certainly empahsize. But they will never let him come back now. There have been many lawsuits. There will be many more. They usually settle, and why not. They make millions.

Student # 2, a former poster on this forum, Dr Giddings. I must emphasize, that Dr TG was not thrown out of UAG as of yet. Back in December 2010, TG was elected to nasa, a student run organization mananged by UAG administration. After being elected, Dr M, the same dean who called EC into his office years before, forced TG to remove his valuemd posts. His punishment was not being able to maintain his elected post for nasa. The connections between the two students years apart are obvious, both students published data on the school.

The point of coming online to write all this stuff was not to change things. That would have been nice but I never sat up nights waiting for that to happen, it was the longest of long shots. The point was to let people know the reality of the situation down here. And in some cases it turned out that current students also did not know a ton of basic information.

What honestly baffles me is how some of you defend UAG. What they are do is inexcusable.

Now if you want to take the stance that "hey, nobody else would accept me and I respect UAG for that, so you guys need to shut up and take it like a man, because no matter how bad things get, I have a tiny chance of making it through to the other side" that's absolutely fine and I completely understand where you are coming from.

But don't snowjob new applicants by saying "work hard and the world is yours" because that's absolutely not true. Coming to UAG is a crazy, crazy gamble and a lot of people who do come here are not adequately prepared and can't handle the school's shenanigans; witness the 20 1st semester students who went down to San Antonio last month to protest this school's actions and dropped out en masse.

I was talking to a guy down here who did 15 years in the military and he said that as much time-wasting junk as he had to put up with in the service, this was somehow worse, because there's zero point to it.

For the record, you guys talking about culture shock, spanish issues and study problems are ridiculous. Nobody down here didn't see those issues coming a long way away, and not a single person I know dropped out for those reasons.

As for older students, many of you were able to go into clinical semesters without passing the USMLE. So perhaps you have forgotten how truly horrendously unprepared the classes here leave you. Some of you took several years to study for the boards and went into the exam with two years of wards to help you piece together stuff. I don't think you appreciate how awful the first two years are, and how utterly lacking the lectures are in terms of any kind of teaching. The amount of outdated or misinformative handouts alone are staggering, even if it was targeted towards USMLE curriculum. Many of the courses are outright useless. And the amount of time spent in lecture every day is a sunk cost, and consists of thousands of hours burned without purpose.

OK i removed your valuemd id information, let me know if you want me to delete the entire post, I dont want to see you end up in trouble with AR(Mrs red flowers)