A university has had to apologise to a medical student who was handed a "yellow card" for wearing an "inappropriate" dress during an exam.
The woman, whose shocking case has since gone viral on social media, was reportedly told her 'short skirt' was inappropriate while receiving feedback from a clinical exam.
Newcastle University has acknowledged that this led to the student being given a "yellow card" by the examiner, but stated that this was revoked after a further probe.
Chronicle Live reports that an initial post by a friend of hers showed the student, who tweets as The Graduate Medic, in a black dress that goes below the knee.
An initial post by a friend of hers showed the woman, who tweets as The Graduate Medic, in a black dress that goes below the knee.
He wrote: “A friend did their OSCE’s with me recently & got yellow carded for wearing a “short skirt”… could someone explain to me how it’s 2021 & medical schools are still pushing sexist notions of primness upon its female student cohort, for daring to display their ankles.”
The student said she complained to the university and claimed she was told “it was the most inappropriate dress they had ever seen”.
She said it was then stated the “examiner's word is final and the investigation is closed”.
The university responded by saying that the comment was made by a role-play patient and apologised for the upset caused while admitting it shouldn’t have led to a yellow card.
It stated: "We want to apologise once again to @thegradmedic for any offence or distress caused by this incident.
"The comment was made by a role-play patient as part of an exam.
"All comments made by patients in exams are passed on to students as feedback.
"However, we agree it should not have resulted in a yellow card from the examiner. This is why, when the concerns were raised with us by @thegradmedic earlier this year, they were investigated and the yellow card was rescinded.
"We would not want any student to come away from these exams feeling remarks like this in any way reflect the values of the University and the issues will be addressed in future examination briefings."
The university also stated: "Our assessments are carried out by external examiners who are NHS clinicians.”
“The Graduate Medic”, though, said this was not the case and that the examiner had also said it was inappropriate clothing.
“This is infactual information. It came apparently from the patient and examiner alike - I asked for verification that it came from the patient and received none - the investigation started with ‘we asked the clinician’ and ended with that,” she said.
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