Wake Forest med student BOASTED about injuring patient who mocked her pronoun pin
A medical student and trans rights activist from North Carolina appeared to boast on Twitter about harming a patient who insulted her for wearing a gender brooch that said she/her. In a since-deleted tweet, Kychelle Del Rosario, a fourth-year student at Wake Forest University's School of Medicine, claimed that she purposely missed the patient's vein during a blood draw so she would have to needle him again.
"I had a patient I was drawing blood from see my pronoun pin and exclaim, 'She/Her? Well of course it is! What other pronouns even are there? It?' to the staff. I missed his vein so he had to get stuck twice," Del Rosario sent out a tweet on Tuesday, March 29.
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That’s the thing about the internet. Admissions of assaulting your patients doesn’t go away even if you delete the tweet @kdel_2023 @wakeforestmed pic.twitter.com/BggUwR2k1u
— Kirsty Fleming KPPS 🦖🦕🦖🦕🦖🦕 (@For_XXs_Sake) March 29, 2022
"This student's tweet does not reflect how Wake Forest University School of Medicine treats patients and provides patient care. We are taking measures to address this with the student," the medical school stated online. Del Rosario has deleted her social media accounts since the posting. It's unclear whether Del Rosario has faced any disciplinary punishment.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. This student’s tweet does not reflect how Wake Forest University School of Medicine treats patients and provides patient care. We are taking measures to address this with the student.
— Wake Forest School of Medicine (@wakeforestmed) March 29, 2022
Del Rosario made the remark in response to a transphobia-related post by Shirlene Obuobi MD, a Ghanaian-American physician, cartoonist, and author. Obuobj, who is cisgender, revealed that she had been wearing a 'she/her' pronoun badge for a year to assist patients and coworkers. Obuobj remarked in a post about transphobia that people "who fall under the trans umbrella feel a little more comfy."
"In the last few weeks, several cis patients have berated me for it," Obuobj added. Del Rosario appears to have been a vocal supporter of transgender people. She wrote an essay last year against the so-called Bathroom Bill, which tried to force people to use public facilities that corresponded to their gender at birth.
"Policies like these have consequential impacts on the health of transgender people," the medical student stated. She also talked about how she was a leader for Safe Zone in Medicine, which she described as "an organization run by health care trainees whose goal is to educate health professionals about the needs and disparities in LGBTQ+ healthcare."
In a March 2021 essay encouraging the Senate to preserve trans health, she said, "This role prepares me to become a trustworthy doctor and advocate for the transgender community—a population which the medical field has harmed greatly in the past. It also allows me to train other health care professionals who aim to improve their practice to be more welcoming and gender-affirming."
She claimed she was "outraged and disheartened" by the "countless horrors" trans people face in the healthcare system, claiming that many will avoid seeking medical help "due to fear of discrimination and mistreatment."