in response to a widespread cheating scandal.
Latika Giri, MBBS, of Kathmandu, claims the board violated its own procedures by invalidating exam scores before giving examinees a chance to argue and appeal, according to documents filed on February 12 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Dr. Giri alleges that the NBME’s actions were discriminatory against Nepali doctors and run afoul of the Civil Rights Act.
Dr. Giri is requesting that the court block NBME from invalidating her scores while the lawsuit continues and restore her original results. The complaint was filed as a class action suit on behalf of Dr. Giri and other as yet unnamed plaintiffs affected by the board’s action.
The lawsuit stems from a January 31 statement from the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) program that it was voiding scores attained by some examinees after an investigation revealed a pattern of anomalous exam performance associated with test-takers from Nepal.
The announcement came just before the report about the selling and buying of USMLE questions online, and concerns that cheating on the exam had become “rampant” in recent years. The article was cited in Dr. Giri’s lawsuit.
A spokesman for the NBME said the board does not comment on pending litigation.
Kritika Tara Deb, a Washington, DC–based attorney representing Dr. Giri, declined to answer specific questions about the case but expressed confidence in the outcome of the suit.
“A policy that explicitly denies employment to an entire nationality or ethnicity is counter to US law and the USMLE’s non-discrimination principles,” Deb told this news organization in an email. “Such a blatantly discriminatory policy severely punishes honest doctors while unfairly maligning an entire nationality, and we’re confident it will not stand.”
Doctor Says She Didn’t Cheat
Dr. Giri is one of 22,000 foreign medical school graduates who complete the USMLE each year, in addition to the 24,000 US medical school graduates who take the exam.
A 2022 graduate of the Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences, Dr. Giri completed her board exams in 2023. According to her lawsuit, she studied hard and did not cheat, passing Step 1 and scoring a 252 on Step 2 and a 229 on Step 3. Dr. Giri took Step 1 in Nepal, Step 2 in India, and Step 3 in Connecticut, according to court documents. In January 2024, Dr. Giri was preparing to enter the residency match pool and hoping to start her training in the summer when she received an email from NBME saying her USMLE scores had been invalidated. She was accused of “extremely improbable answer similarity with other examinees testing on the same form at similar times, unusually high performance, and abnormal question response times,” according to the complaint.
Dr. Giri and other examinees affected by the invalidations were given until February 16 to choose from three options. They could request that NBME reconsider its decision, which could take up to 10 weeks; agree to retake the test; or do nothing, in which case their scores would remain invalid and their access to USMLE would be suspended for 3 years.
If examinees chose options 1 or 2, they would be required to waive their right to sue NBME, according to Dr. Giri’s lawsuit.
“Because of the schedule of medical-residency matching, all three options result in graduates being unable to practice medicine for at least a year,” attorneys for Dr. Giri wrote in the complaint. “All three options force many people to abruptly leave the country within 30 days and cause every affected person to lose their jobs or the opportunity to seek a job.”