North Carolina Medical Board

North Carolina ranks as one of the more difficult State Medical Boards. The North Carolina Board Members can be quite arbitrary in their decisions. Recently we had a physician contact our office to see if we could help with his North Carolina application. He explained that he was a Radiologist who was applying to 15 different Medical Boards. A few years ago the Florida Medical Board issued an administrative fine of $1,000.00 to him when applied for a license to practice medicine. The fine is quite typical of Florida's process if a mistake is made on the application. At the time the fine was issued they told him it was not disciplinary in nature. When he applied to the 15 Medical Boards he forgot to disclose this in part because of what he was told by the Florida Medical Board. Of the 15 Boards, which all knew about this after the Florida License Verification was received, only North Carolina refused to issue the license. The Board Members of the North Carolina Medical Board, met behind closed doors and arbitrarily denied him the license. His attorney and the director of the Board could not believe their decision.  As with many Southern Medical Boards, the decision process over whether to issue a license or not many times can be based on the personality of the individual board members and not on the facts of the Physician's credentials. 

 North Carolina also has a SPEX Examination requirement for Physicians who have not taken a Board Examination or been Certified/Re-Certified by a Speciality Board within the past 10 years. They do allow the Physician to opt out of the SPEX Examination if they have the AMA Physician Recognition Award. 

Here are the basic requirements for Domestic and Foreign Physicians applying to North Carolina: