Horowitz v. Board of Curators of University of Missouri, 75-1949

• Decision Date: 02 September 1976
• Docket Number: No. 75-1949,75-1949
• Citation: 538 F.2d 1317
• Parties: Charlotte HOROWITZ, Appellant, v. BOARD OF CURATORS OF the UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1317

538 F.2d 1317

Charlotte HOROWITZ, Appellant, v. BOARD OF CURATORS OF the UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI et al., Appellees.

No. 75-1949.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted June 15, 1976.

Decided July 16, 1976.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 2, 1976.

Arthur A. Benson, II, Kansas City, Mo., for appellant.

Marvin E. Wright, Columbia, Mo., for appellee, Jackson A. Wright, James S. Newberry and Richard S. Paden, Columbia, Mo., and Fred Wilkins, Kansas City, Mo., on brief.

Before HEANEY, ROSS and STEPHENSON, Circuit Judges.

ROSS, Circuit Judge.

Charlotte Horowitz has brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenging her dismissal from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School of Medicine in July 1973. The defendants are the governing body of the institution and certain officials of the medical school. The case was tried without a jury and judgment was for the defendants, from which Horowitz now appeals. We reverse the district court judgment.

The facts are not seriously in dispute. The UMKC Medical School admitted its first students in August 1971; Horowitz was admitted at that time as an advanced standing student. She has a Bachelor's degree in chemistry from Barnard College and a Master's in psychology from Columbia University. She studied pharmacology at Duke for one year, taking the same curriculum as the first year medical students there. She began as a sophomore at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania but withdrew in good standing because of illness her first semester. She also did graduate study and worked in the field of psychopharmacology at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland for five years. She scored above the 99th percentile on the Graduate Record Examination in Verbal Aptitude, Quantitative Aptitude, Advanced Psychology and Advanced Chemistry. Her scores on the Medical College Admissions Test were also extremely high, with scores in the 99th percentile in the General Information and Science categories. She received excellent recommendations from those with whom she had worked at the National Institute of Health and educators.

The UMKC Medical School's curriculum is intended to educate its students to become competent practicing physicians. Therefore, the school considers that a student must become proficient in clinical skills in order to earn an M.D. degree. Both Horowitz and the University knew at the time of her entrance, however, that she intended to become a psychiatrist and teach or do research.

The policies and regulations of the school do not state the requirements of graduation in terms of a certain number of courses which must be completed. During the last two years of medical education at UMKC a student is required to pursue studies in rotational units which deal with various areas of medicine: e. g. Pathology-Anatomy, Psychiatry, Obstetrics-Gynecology. These units generally included clinical responsibilities as well as academic study. Horowitz received credit for all these rotations except Emergency Room, her last rotation, which was not completed until after it was determined she would not graduate. ¹ Her academic (as opposed to practical) performance certainly gave no cause for complaint. She scored first in the school on Part I of the National Board Examination for medical students and second on Part II. She ranked fourth in her class in quarterly exams given in February 1973, and second in the May 1973 exams. In the latter examination she was either first or second in 14 of the 30 categories.

Although she received credit in all rotational units except Emergency Room and her docent, the faculty member who had the closest contact with her, regarded her performance as outstanding throughout her first year, ² other faculty members felt her clinical performance was deficient. This first came to light in the spring of 1972 when faculty members in the Pediatrics course criticized her lack of patient rapport and "expertise in coming to the fundamentals of the clinical problem," erratic attendance, and poor personal hygiene. These criticisms were brought to Horowitz's attention by her docent, although she was not shown her formal course evaluations.

Toward the end of her first year at the school, Horowitz's record was reviewed by the Council on Evaluation, a body of students and faculty, which recommended to the Dean that she not be advanced to Year VI, the final year of the medical school. However, in a letter dated July 5, 1972, which confirmed an earlier conversation, the Dean told Horowitz that she was being advanced to Year VI, but was on probation. The letter pointed out her deficiencies as follows:

Your acquisition of information is good. Your relationship with others has not been good and represents a major deficiency. You need to improve your relationship with others rapidly and substantially. This involves keeping to established schedules; meeting all clinical responsibilities on time and gracefully; attending carefully to personal appearance, including hand washing and grooming; participating appropriately in the activities of the School; and directing criticisms and suggestions maturely to your Docent and to the faculty member who is in charge of a curriculum block as you may have criticisms and suggestions.

The letter also stated that noncompliance with certain standards of conduct "is incompatible with continued progress and graduation." After she was placed on probation, Horowitz was counseled frequently by her docent, the Dean and other faculty members until her ultimate dismissal.

In November of 1972 the University's Provost for the Health Sciences promulgated changes in the procedures for deciding questions of students' academic standing. The Council on Evaluation thereafter made recommendations to the Coordinating Committee, which consisted of faculty members. The Coordinating Committee had veto power over the Council's recommendations, and the Dean had veto power over recommendations of the Coordinating Committee. Provision was made for students' personal appearances before the Council upon its request if that body felt it had inadequate information. It was also provided that a student could be given additional practical and oral examinations if the Council needed to resolve questions of competence as a physician. On December 26, 1972, the Council on Evaluation reconsidered Horowitz's status and recommended that she not be allowed to graduate on schedule in June 1973. This recommendation was accepted by the Coordinating Committee. The Dean approved this recommendation and on February 7, 1973, he wrote a letter to Horowitz reviewing a conference with her, held January 26. The Dean's letter stated that she had not made sufficient progress as outlined in the July 5 letter and was being continued on probation. She was informed that she would not be able to graduate as scheduled and that she would have to improve markedly in the areas of clinical competence, peer and patient relations, personal hygiene and ability to accept criticism. If she did not make the improvement considered necessary by the Council on Evaluation, she would not be able to continue at the medical school after May. She was told that she could request a set of oral and practical examinations as an "appeal" of the decision not to graduate her in the spring of 1973. Horowitz initiated such a request.

Since no such proceeding had ever been requested and no procedures had been set up, the school had to create a procedure to be followed in Horowitz's case. It was arranged that she would be examined by seven experienced physicians on the faculty, none of whom had appreciable previous contact with Horowitz. They would evaluate her clinical abilities in the areas of pediatrics, pathology and anatomy, general medicine, and obstetrics...