Medical student placed on 'leave of absence' after tweet suggesting she injured a patient over pronoun diss

A Wake Forest School of Medicine student has been placed on a leave of absence following a Twitter post from earlier this week that the student allegedly missed a patient's vein while drawing blood following a comment the patient made about her pronouns pin.

In a now deleted tweet, fourth year medical student Kychelle Del Rosario wrote that she missed a patient's vein because he had taken issue with her pronoun pin, suggesting that the misstep was on purpose.

"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?' I missed his vein so he had to get stuck twice," Del Rosario wrote.

In response to the incident, Associate Vice President of Corporate Communications and National Reputation Management Paula Faria said in an email to Fox News producer Gregg Re that Del Rosario has been placed on leave, and that the tweet "does not reflect what actually occurred."

"When the social media post of one of our students surfaced this week, we immediately started reviewing the incident to determine the facts," Faria wrote in the email. "Our review determined 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," she added.

Faria wrote that the medical school’s protocols require "documentation of all student actions while treating a patient," which includes unsuccessful initial blood draws.

"If a student has an initial unsuccessful blood draw, the student is not to make additional attempts, but to have a separate certified medical professional perform the second attempt," Faria said.

She confirmed that after Del Rosario was unsuccessful, the student deferred to a certified professional for the second draw.

Faria also shared a statement of apology made by Del Rosario to the school, which states: "I am writing this apology for a very irresponsible tweet that I sent on Twitter that I highly regret. 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."

"I calmly shared my thoughts about pronouns and did not escalate the situation further," she continued.

Del Rosario chalked up her unsuccessful first draw to her "inexperience as a student," and said that she followed the required protocols, in which her supervisor performed the second draw.

"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.

"I am truly sorry for poorly representing our school and our health system. I will reflect on responsible social media use as a professional and my duty to care for all patients, regardless of any differences in beliefs," Del Rosario's apology concluded.

At the end of the email, Faria confirmed that Del Rosario had been placed on a leave of absence for her "inappropriate and misleading post."