A North Carolina medical student was placed “on leave” after she tweeted about deliberately harming a patient who mocked her for wearing a pronoun badge that said “she/her.” Wake Forest University said in a statement that the trainee doctor, Kychelle Del Rosario, had made an “inaccurate statement” on social media and that they had conducted a thorough investigation into the incident.
- Del Rosario seemed pretty deliberate about what she’d done. Responding to a tweet by another doctor about transpohobia in the workplace, Del Rosario wrote: “I had a patient I was doing a blood draw on see my pronoun pin and loudly laugh to the staff, ‘She/Her? Well of course it is! What other pronouns even are there? It?’ I missed his vein so he had to get stuck twice.”
- The university insists Del Rosario didn’t actually intend to harm the patient. Despite seeming to imply otherwise, Wake Forest University said: “The review determined that the student had no intention to harm the patient and followed Medical Center protocols The School and the student have agreed upon her taking an extended leave. During this time the student will not participate in any patient care activities.”
- It’s unclear how long Del Rosario’s “extended leave” will be. The university also hasn’t explained how they came to the conclusion that the incident was accidental. The identity of the victim as well as his version of events was also not revealed.
- Del Rosario later apologized for her actions, likely in an attempt to save her budding career in medicine. “I am writing this as an apology for a very irresponsible tweet that I sent on Twitter that I highly regret,” she posted. “For the event mentioned in the tweet, I was performing a blood draw on a patient and during our conversation they had shown dismay at my pronoun pin. I calmly shared my thoughts about pronouns and did not escalate the situation further.” She added: “When I was doing the blood draw, I missed the first time due to my inexperience as a student, and per our policy, my supervisor performed the successful blood draw the second time. During this encounter, I never intended to harm the patient. I am truly sorry for poorly representing our school and our health system. I will reflect on responsible social media use as a professional and my duty to care for all my patients, regardless of any differences of belief.”
Del Rosario has since deleted her Twitter account.
UPDATE: @wakeforestmed announces that Kychelle Del Rosario, the med student who boasted about stabbing a patient because of his politics, is now on an “extended leave.” They don’t elaborate on length of leave. A member of Congress has told us he will soon push for transparency. pic.twitter.com/lal13c0OY7
— Gregg Re (@gregg_re) April 16, 2022
