I hope this is not true - med student in US deliberately misses vein after patient remarks on pronoun badge

[ButlerianJihad]

www.foxnews.com/us/north-carolina-wake-medical-student-missed-vein-patient-stuck-twice-gender-pronoun-pin

Unsure if this is how to share links on MN.

From the text: "A fourth-year medical student at Wake Forest University in North Carolina bragged on Twitter about purposely missing a vein while drawing blood because a patient asked about her pronoun pin.

"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?'" K. Del, or Kychelle Del Rosario, a fourth-year medical student at Wake Forest School of Medicine, tweeted, according to The Post Millennial.

"I missed his vein so he had to get stuck twice," she said. Del Rosario has since deleted her account."

Whether this incident is true or not, and I hope it isn't, it does highlight a concern of the use of pronoun badges in health care. Many people are not familiar with these debates and the strength of feeling involved and so while many who know the consequences are successfully silenced, those naive to the ramifications may make comments which may be perceived as insensitive.

It's discussed here:

www.reddit.com/r/TumblrInAction/comments/tr9tzs/just_a_medic_casually_admitting_on_social_media/

It could easily be true but we'll probably never know for sure. If it is, I hope that medical student is disciplined. Don't know about the US but if she were in the UK she'd be expected to treat everyone with courtesy & respect and do her best for them, whoever they are.

Colm Whatshisname from Amnesty International Ireland wanted political representation withdrawn from GC women. Why not withdraw medical treatment too? Somehow mark our debit/credit cards, freeze our bank accounts so we can't buy food etc.

Welcome to Gilead.

Doubt it ever happened but it illustrates the issue perfectly. Healthcare should be a politics free zone, at point of use anyway. That guy on 'this is going to hurt' probably didn't actually ruin a woman's tattoo because she was being racist, but she could rightfully sue him if he did.

It's universal and without judgement or it isn't.

There should be no political statements in healthcare at all.

Looking at the response of Wake Forest School of Medicine, this story, so far, would appear to be true:

twitter.com/gregg_re/status/1509309723652329480

What this thread needs is someone to come on and say that because Fox News has involved itself we all need to avert our gaze and forget what we've read.

It doesn’t actually specify that missing the vein was deliberate. It could potentially be read as taking glee in having to stick twice in a disliked patient. Still awful, but not actually assault. I can imagine it might be embellished, to hide feelings of incompetence.

I found the general context interesting. There is obviously escalating dislike of having the whole pronoun agenda forced on us. It amazes me that those so intent on virtue signaling never stop to wonder quite why the push-back is growing so fast.

Nobody who takes pleasure in hurting a patient should be anywhere near medicine.

It's this sort of story, whether true or not, that fuels "us and them" to the point you end up with civil conflict and a country's partition.

I'm getting to the point where I don't think the US can last in its current federal form. There's just too many Chris Rocks being publicly slapped by Will Smiths for saying the wrong thing.

Del Rosario is just one of those Will Smiths.

It's so chilling that these pronoun fanatics think they are so in the right that bragging about something like this on social media seemed like a good idea to her. Must have thought her opinions and her were untouchable. I really hope she gets kicked out of medical school.

There's a quote tweet inside Greg Re's thread in which a (self-described) cis woman gets to call transphobia because of getting stick for a 'she/her' pronouns badge. See? Everyone can have a go at this!

I assume the response of the medical student will be "it didn't happen, it was just bravado" to get the offence assessed on the basis of misuse of social media. She'll probably need to change her name in some way, the identified one is very distinctive and might be prominent in Internet searches for years.

Yes I saw this on the Libs of Tiktok Twitter page so I am a Bad Person.

Woke Forest amirite!?

Pronoun-worshipper glorifying actual, literal violence. How progressive...

If this is true, it baffles me why people decide ti make these things public. I'm sure helsthcare professionals treat nice/rude patients differently and might take extra care with the nice ones. But harming on purpose and making it public?

Because they've learned for years that if you say something that will be treated with joy in your echo chamber, your social capital will increase considerably. They forget that the real world actually still exists, it's just out of their line of sight, and thus effectively of no consequence.

But sometimes they find themselves tipped into the real world and then they are horrified by how it doesn't obey the rules of the echo chamber.

Hm.

It's been said from the start:

Does allowing politics into health care mean that health care professionals will feel entitled to provide less good care and indeed in this case actively enjoy exploiting the power of their position and set aside ethics - to those declared heretics and unworthy compared to Good People?

Any health care professional behaving like this should be sacked on the spot. It's atrociously bad in terms of basic practice and competence.

Sadly nothing surprises me anymore in the twisted universe that we seem to be existing in

This reminds me of something disturbing I read last year about growing issues with young doctors and medical students thinking it is ok to deprioritize patients in situations like triage if they are, for example, seen as racists.

It might have been in The Atlantic, but I will check when I get back from work.

@nauticant

Because they've learned for years that if you say something that will be treated with joy in your echo chamber, your social capital will increase considerably. They forget that the real world actually still exists, it's just out of their line of sight, and thus effectively of no consequence.

But sometimes they find themselves tipped into the real world and then they are horrified by how it doesn't obey the rules of the echo chamber.

Very well put.

@tabbycatstripy

Nobody who takes pleasure in hurting a patient should be anywhere near medicine.

This.

@Artichokeleaves

Hm.

It's been said from the start:

Does allowing politics into health care mean that health care professionals will feel entitled to provide less good care and indeed in this case actively enjoy exploiting the power of their position and set aside ethics - to those declared heretics and unworthy compared to Good People?

Any health care professional behaving like this should be sacked on the spot. It's atrociously bad in terms of basic practice and competence.

This is already happening. Pharmacists are allowed to refuse to sell a woman plan B or other forms of birthcontrol for "religious reasons", but really it's polotical.

Her twitter account has since been deleted but I'm sure before it was, there was a tweet saying something along the lines of 'I didn't really stick them deliberately! Was an accident! Trans rights always!'

As described above, undoubtedly she stepped out her echo chamber and went 'Oh shit, this hasn't gone down well in the real world'.

Interesting that Dr Obuobi said she had had several patients commenting negatively on her pronoun badge over the past few weeks. Something shifting?

Also it's hardly unknown any hcp to miss a vein or have a problem with venepuncture - certainly done it myself, some veins are just tricky little buggers . What is wrong is the med student's bragging & turning into a political action.

The main guiding principle for any HCP is "Do no harm". Fuck me, I have had to look after sex offenders and wife beaters. Does it stick in my craw? Too damn right it does. I have to put aside my prejudices and treat everyone the same.