On October 17, 2023 the HOA filed a grievance on behalf of three House Officers who had contracted Covid-19 and were given a training extension as a result. 

At issue was a Departmental policy that applied an automatic training extension for House Officers who needed more than 2 sick days during the academic year. The policy of Michigan Medicine requires 5 days off for a positive Covid screening, which means that every positive Covid test could lead to a training extension unless the House Officer burns their vacation time.

The hospital maintained that because the Boards overseeing the Anesthesiology program no longer recognized Covid as a reason to grant a waiver for time away from training, that this was an academic issue and did not fall under the HOA contract. 

Unfortunately, during an earlier grievance arbitration, an arbitrator ruled for the University, finding the policy to be purely academic. The issue of Covid was discussed, but as the American Board of Anesthesiology had changed its policy for providing waivers for Covid, the arbitrator ruled this was outside the scope of the HOA contract.

None of the three grievants had been granted FMLA approval for their Covid leaves, so the HOA felt the likelihood of prevailing at another arbitration would be low. The HOA made the difficult decision to settle the grievance to avoid another damaging precedent.

Currently, the HOA has an active grievance for an Anesthesiology House Officer who was granted FMLA for their Covid leave. That case is currently scheduled for arbitration.