§ 101.004.Status of Medical Residents and Fellows

A 2019 provision resolving a recurring question about who a teaching hospital's trainees work for.

A resident or fellow in a graduate medical training program for physicians sponsored by a governmental unit, including a medical and dental unit as the Education Code defines it, is considered to be an employee of a governmental unit regardless of the method or source of payment.

The final clause is the operative one. Residency funding is tangled — a resident may be sponsored by a state medical school, rotate through a private hospital, and be paid through a third arrangement. Whether they were an "employee" of a governmental unit at the moment of the alleged negligence could turn on payroll details having nothing to do with the care.

The section removes the question. Sponsorship by the governmental unit is what counts.

The consequence for a claimant is significant, and cuts against them. If the resident is a governmental employee, the election of remedies section applies: a suit against the resident based on conduct within the general scope of employment is treated as a suit against them in their official capacity only, and shall be dismissed unless the claimant substitutes the governmental unit within 30 days.

The claim then proceeds against the governmental unit under the Act's caps, and must also satisfy the medical liability chapter's expert report requirement.