A medical student who was disciplined with a “yellow card” for wearing an “inappropriate” dress has received an apology from her university.
The woman was taking part in a clinical examination as part of her exams when she was allegedly told her “short skirt” was inappropriate.
Her case has gone viral on social media with Newcastle University being slammed as sexist.
The student, who tweets as The Graduate Medic, said that she complained to the university and claimed she was told “it was the most inappropriate dress they had ever seen”.
She added that it was then stated that the “examiners word is final and the investigation is closed”, while she commented: “Isn’t discrimination lovely.”
The initial tweet by a friend of hers showed the woman 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 university responded by saying that the comment was made by a role-play student 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the concerns were raised with us by @thegradmedic earlier this year, they were investigated and the yellow card was rescinded.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 told Mirror Online: "Our assessments are carried out by external examiners who are NHS clinicians.”
Immediately “The Graduate Medic”, though, hit back at the university tweets saying 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.
It has led to Newcastle University receiving a storm of complaints.
One wrote: “This is appalling. When I did finals the outfit she was wearing would have been regarded as extremely professional & appropriate. It's the length I wore as a junior doctor every single day. That a 'patient' was remarking on the 'doctors' legs seems far more inappropriate here."
Another put it: "This is shameful abuse of the concept of ‘professionalism’ used as blatant misogyny by @UniofNewcastle.
"Clear consensus from the medical community here that the medical school has acted entirely inappropriately and seems to be making no concerted efforts to reconcile."
There were hundreds of similar comments.
One person tweeted: "It's really concerning that somebody in that room commented on the appearance of @thegradmedic and the response from the rest of the examiners wasn't to immediately shut that misogynistic nonsense down."
Another agreed: "What an absolute disgrace! Discrimination like this has no place in society and should not be accepted. @thegradmedic, at the very least deserves an apology. The ‘patient’ shouldn’t be used again. The examiner needs disciplined and sent on a discrimination awareness course."
