Medical schools want more options to send away unsuitable students

Medical schools want the government to adjust the law so that they have more options to send away unsuitable students. They repeated this call after medical student Fouad L. killed three people in Rotterdam last month, AD reports.

Fouad L. was on the point of graduating as a doctor. He had obtained all the credits to receive his diploma. But, after the Public Prosecution Service warned Erasmus MC about his behavior, the university hospital’s examination board asked him to first undergo a psychological examination. Before that examination was completed, L. shot and killed an Erasmus MC lecturer, his neighbor, and her 14-year-old daughter.

A survey of the Dutch medical schools showed that they have concerns about a few dozen medical students, AD reports. Not necessarily concerns of violence but concerns about whether they would make good doctors. They repeatedly show that they cannot communicate well with patients or colleagues, lack the required skills, or have mental health problems that aren’t under control.

But removing such a student from the program is no easy task, the medical schools said. Medical schools can only initiate an expulsion procedure if there is an acute danger to patients, fellow students, or colleagues. In practice, that rarely happens - since the law was changed in 2010, there have been 15 cases.

According to the medical schools’ examination boards, there are hardly any students who are so clearly dangerous that they can be expelled. Walther van Mook, intensivist, professor of professional development, and also chairman of the Professional Behavior Committee within the medical training in Maastricht, researched the issue and found that about 9 percent of a year group of medical students have some issues. “But that can almost always be traced back to something transient,” he told the newspaper. The number of students who have structural problems is 0.5 to 1 percent, he said. These are mainly men, he knows from practice and literature.

According to the law, anyone who studies can work on themselves and improve, and the program must at all times ensure that students get the help they need to graduate. The right to education gets so much weight that a student needs to do something terrible before expulsion is an option. The medical schools would like a bit more room to expel unsuitable students before a terrible incident. “There must be an immediate danger, but that doesn’t happen very often. Moreover, if a student does pose an immediate demonstrable danger, you do not want a procedure that takes years,” a spokesperson for the National Consultation of Chairmen of Medical Exam Committees told the newspaper.

Minister Robberd Dijkgraaf of Education would not respond substantively to the request. “The investigation into the terrible events in Rotterdam is still ongoing. I want to await the results.” Last year, he said he did not want to change the law.