Does anyone have any first hand experience with submitting an ACGME complaint? Several of the residents in my program are concerned about our education. We reviewed the Institutional Requirements and feel there are several infractions. After submitting, what’s the turn around time? Is it better to submit a complaint signed by multiple residents?
Before you do so, make sure you to have a consensus among your co-residents. ACGME looks into complaints seriously, and any whistle-blowing (true or not) can lead to a year-long shit-show for your program. Don't be a martyr unless you decide the things you are concerned about have a reasonable chance of being fixed with external pressure/audit.
Worst or best case, ACGME can revoke accreditation of your program. In that case, you're at the mercy of whatever residency program wants your essentially free labor. That said, this is a small field and everyone talks.
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If you submit a complaint outside of the yearly survey, you will likely get a extremely rapid response. I would consider other avenues of complaint. For every degree of separation you add between the policing body and your program, You will get an exponentially more onerous and less focused solution. You may want to consider anonymously reporting to your hospitals graduate medical education review committee on accreditation. They have the same authority but they may address the problem with dramatically less over the top measures. ACGME citations go through them anyways so you are saving potentially a lot of drama. Remember the function of the ACGME is to demonstrate compliance, not actually help you.
Personally, I would send a detailed list of the complaints and proposed solutions from an anonymous email, but signed by every resident, so no one is singled out, to the chair, PD, APD, and head of every separate sub-department. You must be unified. See if they take it seriously or some solutions start being implemented. IMO this is a fair way to give them a warning. Don't make overt threats, and most importantly don't let them single out particular residents.
If this doesn't work then I would go to your organizations GME. There should be multiple avenues to submit complaints. A university president or hospital CEO has significantly more power in this situation than the ACGME, they control your attending's salaries and resources. At the end of the day it's embarrassing to have a program dissolved, but this can affect their wallets directly and I guarantee you see some action after that.
Make sure you're collecting evidence on bad behavior. If somehow this turns on you you may get fired and will need all the evidence you can get for wrongful termination suit. Good luck.