Suit seeks halt to Resident Match Day program.(Fixed Slots, Fixed Pay)

WILMINGTON, DEL. -- The Resident Match is fundamentally anticompetitive and represents an effort to depress the wages and opportunities of medical residents, according to a lawsuit filed by former and current residents.

As the suit drags on in court, some of the hospitals involved are trying to get the case dismissed, arguing that the plaintiffs have not adequately stated their claim and that the court does not have jurisdiction over some of the defendants. At press time, the court was taking these issues under advisement.

"The residency market is problematic," compared with other business markets, Kristin Madison, Ph.D., said at the annual meeting of the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. Unlike other markets, "[the hospitals] know where residents come from; they know what pool of candidates they will be choosing from. They also have only a fixed number of slots."

On May 7, former residents Dr. Paul Jung and Dr. Luis Llerena, along with current resident Dr. Denise Greene, sued the Association of American Medical Colleges, the National Resident Matching Program, the American Medical Association, several other physician and hospital organizations, and 28 hospitals.

The suit alleges that, by using the Match Day computer program to place residents into residency slots, the defendants have "illegally contracted, combined, and conspired among themselves to displace competition in the recruitment, hiring, employment, and compensation of resident physicians, and to impose a scheme of restraints which have the purpose and effect of fixing, artificially depressing, standardizing, and stabilizing resident physician compensation and other terms of employment

The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages as well as a halt to the National Resident Matching Program.

There are several reasons that the Match could be viewed as anticompetitive, said Dr. Madison, assistant professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.