Medical Student Put On ‘Leave of Absence’ After Tweeting About Harming Patient Over Pronouns
(Photo by Go Nakamura/Getty Images)
A student with the Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina has been placed on a leave of absence after stirring up controversy with a tweet claiming she intentionally hurt a patient based on their reaction to a pronoun pin she was wearing.
In a since-deleted tweet, fourth-year medical student Kychelle Del Rosario tweeted that during a blood draw on a patient, she purposefully stuck him twice after he made a joke about a pin she was wearing identifying her preferred pronouns as “she/her.”
“Well of course it is! What other pronouns even are there? It?” the patient said, according to the tweet.
“I missed his vein so he had to get stuck twice,” Del Rosario tweeted.
The tweet received enough of a response that the medical student deleted her account this week. The popular Twitter account Libs of TikTok posted a screenshot of the tweet though, eliciting more outrage.
Tucker Carlson Tonight producer Gregg Re reached out to Wake Forest School, which originally claimed the post from Del Rosario does not reflect the “quality of care and compassion” of the school. They did not, however, go into specifics about the alleged incident referenced in the post in their initial statement.
Publicist at @wakeforestmed finally sends this. This statement is false. Federal law does not preclude Wake Forest from telling the public whether this doctor is seeing patients and whether she is still enrolled. THE DOCTOR BOASTED ABOUT MISTREATING A PATIENT B/C OF HIS POLITICS. pic.twitter.com/WtDYAwh2Td
— Gregg Re (@gregg_re) March 30, 2022
In a Thursday follow-up statement, the school said they had determined that Del Rosario had not actually hurt a patient on purpose, but said they had placed her on a “leave of absence” over the “misleading” social media post.
Associate Vice President of Corporate Communications and National Reputation Management Paula Faria said in an email to Re that school procedure is to have students hand off a blood draw if their initial attempt is unsuccessful, which Del Rosario did. The student also released a public apology, which the school shared.
“During this encounter, I never intended to harm the patient. I understand how my misguided tweet read that I did intend to harm them as retribution. In an emotional moment, I sent the tweet out without thinking about the consequences,” she said.
The school also confirmed that Del Rosario is not directly involved in patient care following the controversy.
