Gail Brown, MD, a Cabot native, attended Medical University of the Americas on the West Indies island of Nevis with the intention of returning to practice in her home state. But in June 2008, while she was a family practice resident in Alabama, the Arkansas State Medical Board adopted a list of "disapproved" medical schools whose graduates were barred from practicing medicine in the state. The Medical University of the Americas was on that list.

 

Devastated, Brown waged a campaign to have the board reverse its decision, which she felt was unfair. On April 8, the board did throw out the list and chose instead to evaluate foreign-school graduates on other criteria, such as their U.S. residency training and the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates exam. Also, it will limit graduates to three attempts at each of the three parts of the USMLE.

 

The new rule, officially known as Amendment to Regulation 3 of the Arkansas Medical Practices Acts and Regulations, will take effect June 1, according to the medical board's website.

 

The change came a little too late for Brown and her husband, Thomas Rose, also a Medical University graduate. As they neared the end of their three-year residency earlier this year, they signed a three-year contract to practice in Gadsden, Ala. Brown, 51, has said they have not ruled out the possibility of someday returning to Arkansas.

 

The issue revolved around the difficulty in credentialing medical schools worldwide – some 1,800 of them. Arkansas, along with several other states, had essentially followed the lists of approved and disapproved schools developed by the Medical Board of California, which had the resources to evaluate more schools. But Arkansas marked as disapproved not only the 10 schools flagged by California, but also many that had never applied for approval, including the Medical University of the Americas.

 

The university is one of 53 medical schools not credentialed by the Arkansas State Medical Board. Of those, two are in Africa, one is in Mexico, and the rest are in the Caribbean and Central America.

 

In April 2009, another Caribbean medical school, the American University of Antigua College of Medicine, and four of its students sued the Arkansas State Medical Board and its members. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, claims board policies unfairly and unconstitutionally excludes graduates of the school from practicing medicine in Arkansas.

 

New York attorney Leonard Sclafani and the Schults Law Firm of Little Rock represent the plaintiffs. The lawsuit seeks a declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, compensatory damages and reimbursement for fees and costs. It states that publicizing the list of disapproved schools was defamatory and done with malice. It asks that AUA not be listed as disapproved without proper investigation, and that plaintiffs and other students not be denied the chance to practice based solely on AUA's listing as a disapproved school.

 

Bill Trice, the state medical board's attorney, has argued that the American College of Antigua never formally applied to the board for credentials or asked the board for an interpretation of its rules.

 

The lawsuit will not be dropped despite the medical board's change in policy, Brown said. 

 

She explained, “Settlement without court involvement is not an option,” because once the federal court makes a ruling on the issue, the matter becomes federal law.

 

“The importance of this lawsuit is to make federal law and clarification on the 14th Amendment, due process, disparity of treatment and civil rights,” she said. “It is not just about getting Arkansas' medical board to change its mind toward AUA or other Caribbean medical schools.”

 

Brown is not part of that lawsuit, but did help Sclafani in the discovery process.
“He found the letters I'd written to the governor, attorney general, U.S. representatives and senators, medical board members, and I wasn't getting anything back,” Brown said. “When he got all the discovery, he realized I'd made a concerted effort to get something done without going through the legal system.
“So he contacted me, and asked me if I would help him with any further research.”

 

Brown continues to send Sclafani additional information about other states' medical boards and their laws and regulations on the issue, with an eye for any disparity in the law. 

 

“I just want to be sure people do get due process, and get considered (for licensing) on their own merit,” Brown said.