University of Miami Miller School of Medicine — Dismissal & Appeals

Written by Zachary Gaynor, attorney · The Florida Bar, admitted 2016 · court admissions. Reviewed 3 September 2026.

Who decides whether a Miller School medical student is dismissed?

Promotion and disciplinary decisions at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine run through the Promotions and Professionalism Committee, which reports to the Dean on each appeal and recommends a course of action. The detailed procedures are published only inside a login-gated handbook, so the appeal window and standard of proof are not publicly verifiable.

What is publicly documented

The Faculty Council publishes the committee’s charge. Its members “hear and evaluate medical student’s appeals regarding Promotions Committee decisions, report to the Dean on each appeal, and recommend a course of action.” They are described as persons with extensive medical school teaching experience, frequently former course coordinators, meeting roughly eight to ten times a year, “whenever appeals are pending.” Scheduling is therefore ad hoc rather than calendared.

The Medical Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook lists, under Disciplinary Process: the Promotions and Professionalism Committee, a conflict-of-interest policy, the committee process, adverse administrative actions, Physicianship Evaluation Forms, probation, mandatory leave of absence, suspension, dismissal, expulsion, and an appeals process.

The most useful sentence Miami publishes

The committee’s review “focuses not only on the propriety of academic performance, but on personal circumstances and psychological status.”

That is an unusually broad appellate mandate, and it is an express invitation. At most schools an appeal that leads with personal hardship is answering the wrong question. At Miami the committee’s own charge says personal circumstances are within scope. An appeal built only on a procedural point leaves that door unused.

Three sanctions, not one

Miami separates suspension, dismissal and expulsion as distinct outcomes — a finer gradation than most Florida medical schools publish. Where three tiers exist, proportionality is a real argument: the question is not only whether something happened but whether the most severe of three available responses was warranted.

Note also that mandatory leave of absence sits inside the Disciplinary Process. An involuntary leave at Miami is framed as an adverse administrative action, not a neutral pause. It should be treated, and responded to, as discipline.

Professionalism concerns are captured on Physicianship Evaluation Forms, and there is a separate Code of Honorable and Professional Conduct running alongside the promotions track. A single incident can therefore generate parallel records.

Why the deadlines are not stated here

Every chapter of the handbook, for every published year, is hosted on the University’s Microsoft 365 tenant and returns a sign-in page to anyone outside it. No public URL for the policy text was located. We will not publish an appeal deadline, a standard of proof or an advisor rule for Miami that we cannot verify against the document itself, and neither should anyone else.

The practical consequence for a student: request the current handbook chapter in writing at the first sign of a problem, and record the date you received it. A school that adjudicates against a student under a document the student could not read is a fact worth establishing early, and it is one you can only establish by asking and keeping the answer.

Where to look

Faculty Council standing committees, including the committee charge quoted above — med.miami.edu
Medical Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook, section list — med.miami.edu
Important policies and procedures — med.miami.edu

Miami is a private university, so Fla. Stat. § 1006.60 — which gives students at Florida’s public institutions a participating advisor and places the burden on the institution — does not apply. The governing instrument is the handbook, as a contract.

Other Florida health-professional programs

Every school writes its own dismissal, appeal and conduct rules, and the filing deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other Florida health-professional programs:

Common questions

How long do I have to appeal a Miller School dismissal?

Miami does not publish the window outside its login-gated handbook. Request the current Disciplinary Process chapter in writing immediately and work to the deadline it states, treating the date of the decision letter as the start.

Can I raise personal or health circumstances in the appeal?

Yes, and Miami is unusual in saying so. The committee’s published charge states that its review covers personal circumstances and psychological status as well as academic performance.

Is a mandatory leave of absence a disciplinary action at Miami?

The handbook lists it inside the Disciplinary Process alongside probation, suspension and dismissal, so it should be treated as an adverse action rather than a neutral administrative step.

Does Florida’s student due-process statute apply at Miami?

No. Fla. Stat. § 1006.60 governs Florida’s public institutions. At a private university the handbook operates as the contract, which makes the exact wording of the version in force at the time decisive.