AmeriClerkships AmeriClerkships Medical Society Americlerkship were unable to provide insured hands-on clerkship in a TEACHING HOSPITAL(GUARANTEED) and refused to refund my payment back. Irvine, California

There are always two sides to every story.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Customer service is very important to us, which is the reason why I'm responding to this complaint personally. AmeriClerkships Medical Society (AMS) is a membership based society with a Mission to cultivate competitive, well rounded candidates who will serve as valuable assets to the U.S. healthcare education industry. We achieve this Mission by providing our members direct access to AMS affiliated U.S. licensed physicians who elect to serve our members as high-level mentors and experienced career coaches (referred to as “Attendings” or "Clinical Supervisors”), and cultivate them to become strong applicants through evidence based U.S. healthcare acculturation, communication improvement skills, profession relevant clinical experiences and networking. AMS is proud to have over 500 of it's members from 26 countries secure medical residencies in 11 specialties across the United States, since 2007.

This former member enrolled with AMS in order to obtain 4 weeks of volunteer clinical experience with a supervising family physician who is affiliated with a local teaching hospital (a hospital that is listed in the www.acgme.org website of sponsoring institutions, or recognized by the American Osteopathic Association). Additionally she enrolled in our Teaching Hospital Guarantee (THG) service: THG will ensure that the 444 rule applies to each assigned clinical block: "4 opportunities to accompany your supervising physician to a ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) or AOA (American Osteopathic Association) recognized U.S. hospital(s), to visit 4 patients averaged over 4 weeks". If successfully completed and the supervising physician was happy with the members performance, the supervising physician may elect to recommend our members to future employers such as medical residencies, and members would be able to include this experience on their resume as recent medical experience with a licensed U.S. physician who served as her mentor, in his/her selected specialty.

A physician's patient exposure, clinical teaching information, affiliations and nature of practice are very fluid and therefore, we rely heavily on information and feedback from both previous clients as well as the supervising physicians when categorizing clinical sites as THG. Unfortunately when she arrived at her supervising family physician's clinical site, the physician told her that he no longer visited local teaching hospitals, and instead modified his practice to include clinic and visiting local convalescent hospitals/nursing homes. Once her National Clinical Coordinator at AMS learned about this event, she offered her an internal medicine THG clinical block with availability in her area, which was accepted by this member, but that she will not begin till August since the physician with whom this member had been completing a research project called and asked this member to come back full time, therefore she didn't have time to complete the clinical experience at this time. We agreed to delay her start till August, and in order to reassure her that her next physician is a THG, we provided her with the name and contact information of her future supervising physician, but asked her to not contact the physician so that we respect this physician's privacy. Unfortunately, this member didn't listen to us.

The physician who this member was assigned to is affiliated with St. John's Hospital of Mercy Medical Center; Mercy Medical Center is a teaching hospital system in St. Louis (please refer to http://www.mercy.net/careers/graduate-medical-education for details). Her assigned supervisor is also affiliated with the Washington University health systems, which is also a teaching hospital. Unfortunately, this member took matters into her own hands and spoke with an office personnel, and not her assigned physician, who allegedly told her that the physician does not go to a teaching hospital. All along, AMS was under the impression that she was unable to attend her clinicals because of research, and it wasn't till weeks into her cancellation period that we uncovered this member's errors in verification, which led herself to believe that her assigned physician makes no visits to teaching hospitals. Furthermore similar to most other physician supervisors, her physician's policy is to interview every new member prior to taking them to the hospital, which this member also decided to ignore. I contacted this member after confirming with her physician, twice, about the above and discussed my findings, but this member continued to resit my findings and demanded for a refund.

This member has agreed in a signed agreement that 4 week clinical blocks are not entitled to a refund. The reason for this is that once a member enrolls, that seat is reserved for him/her and marked as filled; this is similar to purchasing a concert ticket: once sold, it can't be refunded since it can't be sold without incurring significant costs. Once a clinical block is sold, it is assigned a specific Clinical Block number which prevents us from enrolling anyone else into these clinical blocks. Furthermore, enrollments can not be cancelled simply due to change of mind. I have shared a signed copy of this member's agreement with the Better Business Bureau for review, who has also dismissed this case.

I contacted this member and said that even though she took matters into her own hands by incorrectly contacting an office personnel who gave her the wrong information, and failed to show up to her clinicals, I will allow her to enroll in another 4 week block of clinical experience for customer service. Last I heard from her were this complaint, a complaint to the Better Business Bureau which was immediately dismissed after reviewing our findings, as well as multitudes of slanderous online posts against AmeriClerkships. Hope this helps explain our side of this story.

Thank you.