The American University of Antigua College of Medicine and four of its students are suing the Arkansas State Medical Board and its board members, claiming board policies unfairly and unconstitutionally exclude graduates of the school from practicing medicine in Arkansas.

 

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas April 27 and assigned to Judge Susan Webber Wright. Two of the students, Amber Milward and Justin Harney, are Arkansans who hope to practice medicine in their home state. New York attorney Leonard Sclafani and the Schults Law Firm of Little Rock are the plaintiffs' lawyers.

 

AUA 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.

 

Unable to monitor the world's 1,800 medical schools, Arkansas, like several other states, relies on the work done by California, which performs costly site visits. Arkansas blacklists schools California has rejected as well as some that have never applied for admission with California. AUA has applied for credentialing in California but has not yet undergone the rigorous certification process and is not listed as approved or disapproved by the California State Medical Board.

 

That reliance on California is part of the problem, the plaintiffs claim. They contend that Arkansas violates its own rules by failing to perform its own investigations. Moreover, they claim that Arkansas' policies unconstitutionally deprive graduates of practicing their profession, violating their rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

 

In an interview, the State Medical Board's attorney, Bill Trice, said the board has followed its own regulations in denying credentials to AUA. Trice said AUA has never approached the board with a formal application and has never asked for an interpretation of its rules.

 

The Arkansas Medical Practices Acts and Regulations lists a number of criteria for the board to base its credentialing decisions. These are to be "based on but not limited to" a number of factors, including its own staff's investigation as well as information compiled by other states' medical boards.

 

The college was founded in 2004 by American physicians and educators and was later acquired by Manipal University, a school chartered in India. It has been approved by the state of New York for clinical clerkships and residencies and recognized by the World Health Organization. Most students are Americans who plan to practice in the United States.

 

According to the lawsuit, the policies discriminate against American students because California's rules include a provision that grants approval to schools owned by a foreign government whose students are predominantly citizens of that government's country. That policy discriminates against the predominantly American students of Caribbean schools, the suit claims.

 

That is no accident, according to the suit and to attorney Sclafani. The suit accuses the Arkansas State Medical Board of colluding with the American Medical Association, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, and the American Association of Medical Colleges to limit the number of medical schools and the number of medical seats in the United States. It claims those entities have been working for decades "in order to create and maintain an ever growing critical shortage of medical doctors in the United States, thereby driving up the cost of medical care and services so as to enrich the fortunate few doctors who graduate from schools under the LCME's aegis."

 

In an interview, Sclafani explained, "The graduates of American medical schools are soaking up all of the plum jobs, and who's the real challenge to that? Well, it's Americans that don't get into American medical schools."

 

Trice scoffed at that notion, saying, "There's not a global conspiracy against these people." Phone calls to the AMA and the AAMC were not returned by deadline.

 

Sclafani said that Arkansas should accept any student that passes the LCME exam and the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical School Graduates exam.

 

The lawsuit seeks a declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, compensatory damages and reimbursement for fees and costs. It says that publicizing the list was defamatory and was done with malice. It asks that the school 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.

 

Sclafani said the school was willing to pay for the board's expenses to come to Antigua to investigate it. He said Arkansas has a shortage of trained personnel in numerous areas of medicine and health care, so it shouldn't be limiting its access to trained medical personnel.