Wake Forest backs student who tweeted about injuring patient after pronoun pin conflict
A Wake Forest medical student tweeted about failing to draw a patient's blood after he made a joke about her pronoun pin.
The student was suspended pending an investigation, however, the school affirmed its support for her in a statement on Wednesday.
Wake Forest School of Medicine is taking the side of a fourth-year medical student who boasted on Twitter about failing to draw a patient’s blood after the individual made a joke 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?,” wrote Kychelle Del Rosario.
She continued, “I missed his vein so he had to get stuck twice.”
A @wakeforestmed 4th year medical student says she abused a patient because he laughed at her pronoun pin. She has since deleted her account. pic.twitter.com/2m3DsjTFZx
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) March 29, 2022
The tweet, which has since been deleted but was screenshotted by @libsoftiktok, sparked outrage on social media and caught the attention of the university administration.
Del Rosario was suspended pending an investigation. More details about the incident were released by the school in a statement on Wednesday.
According to the school, the poke was accidental and the incident was properly documented. As policy dictates, Del Rosario did not attempt to draw blood a second time and the patient was cared for by an experienced supervisor.
”Our documentation verifies that after the student physician was unsuccessful in obtaining the blood draw, the student appropriately deferred a second attempt to one of our certified professionals. The student did not attempt to draw blood again,” the university stated, according to the student newspaper Old Gold & Black.
In a statement provided to Campus Reform, Wake Forest School of Medicine said it is “dedicated to providing compassionate care to all” patients while equipping the next generation of healthcare employees.
”When the social media post of one of our students surfaced this week, we immediately started reviewing the incident to determine the facts,” the university told Campus Reform. “Our review revealed that the description of the patient encounter on social media does not reflect what actually occurred. We also determined that all of our procedures were followed while caring for this patient.”
Del Rosario is expected to return to her rounds soon and confirmed the conclusion of the investigation in a statement to the school.
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”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,” she said. “I calmly shared my thoughts about pronouns and did not escalate the situation further. 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.”
Despite the alleged tone of the tweet, Del Rosario implored that she “never intended to harm the patient.”
Del Rosario additionally wrote a heartfelt apology to the school for her online behavior. In the statement, she admitted to “poorly representing” the school and the healthcare 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,” she reportedly wrote.
Campus Reform contacted Wake Forest University School of Medicine for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
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