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To the Editor.—Several factual errors in the Resident Forum by Dr Mason¹ bear correcting in order for readers to understand the important issue of whether resident physicians are considered students or employees.

House officers at Boston City Hospital (BCH) in Boston, Mass, organized themselves as a union (House Officers' Association [HOA]) and began to negotiate collective bargaining agreements with the city of Boston in 1969. Because BCH was a public hospital, the house staff came under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts state labor law, which considered them to be employees (this is the case with most other states as well).^2-3 House staff in private hospitals have, since a controversial 1976 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision,⁴ been considered students, and therefore not guaranteed the right to unionize.

In 1995, BCH and the private hospital next door, Boston University Medical Center Hospital (BUMCH), announced plans to merge into 1 private hospital. . . . [Full Text of this Article]