Wake Forest med student who implied she harmed patient for mocking pronoun pin on ‘extended leave’

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Medical student apologizes for tweet suggesting she hurt patient intentionally

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel sits down with Steve Doocy to discuss a medical student's tweet which expressed anger toward a patient who mocked her pronoun pin.

A fourth-year medical student at North Carolina’s Wake Forest University, Kychelle Del Rosario, is on "extended leave" and will not be seeing patients amid controversy over a tweet suggesting she missed a vein during a blood draw on a patient who disagreed with her political views on transgenderism. 

"Wake Forest School of Medicine has completed a thorough review of the patient encounter with our medical student who recently made an inaccurate statement on social media," Wake Health spokeswoman Paula Faria said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Friday. "The review determined that the student had no intention to harm the patient and followed Medical Center protocols."

"The School and the student have agreed upon her taking an extended leave," Faria added. "During this time the student will not participate in any patient care activities." 

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Faria did not respond to a Fox News Digital follow-up email Monday seeking clarification as to how long the "extended leave" will last or whether Del Rosario might still face permanent expulsion. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Winston-Salem City Attorney Angela Carmon Monday asking whether her office planned an independent investigation into Del Rosario’s actions. In response, she said the matter is not something her office would handle, without elaborating further.  

This file photo shows Wake Forest University campus in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  ((Photo by John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images))

Fox News’ "Tucker Carlson Tonight" producer Gregg Re has called on local prosecutors to subpoena Wake Forest University to obtain the identity of the patient and conduct an independent probe.

In a March 29 tweet, Del Rosario said: "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," she added. 

Amid an outpouring of media coverage, the school has since claimed Del Rosario’s tweet was not an accurate recount of the incident and that in fact, after Del Rosario was unsuccessful in her first attempt at a blood draw, she appropriately deferred to a certified physician who was successful the second time. 

Another Wake Forest medical student, Ewen Liu, defended Del Rosario and defined her alleged mistake as karma that the patient had coming to him over his remarks about the pin. 

"To clarify, the missed stick was COMPLETELY an accident and just seemed ‘karma-tic’," Liu wrote. "She is kind and professional and would never harm anyone intentionally." 

In a recent email to the student body, the dean of the Wake Forest School of Medicine criticized "unkind people" on the Internet who discussed the story instead of condemning the treatment of a patient.  

"It is appalling that the vast majority of the media coverage surrounding Del Rosario’s tweet is critiquing her lack of professionalism rather than her patient’s display of bigotry," the student newsletter said. "There’s been no known follow-up with the patient concerning the problematic nature of their comments, or even any documentation of their inappropriate behavior." 

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Before Friday’s update, Del Rosario was previously scheduled to see patients at Wake Baptist Ear, Nose and Throat department this week and was on the Wake Forest planning committee for an upcoming conference in Dallas, Texas, slated to discuss how best to treat transgender patients. 

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.