A dyslexic medical student is taking legal action against the General Medical Council over its use of multiple choice tests.
Naomi Gadian says the exams discriminate against people who suffer with the learning disability that can hinder a person's ability to read and write.
The 21-year-old student at the Peninsula College of Medicine in Plymouth said the system was unfair and unrealistic.
'Patients aren't going to ask you, "Here's four answers. Which one is right?",' she added.
The GMC said it had recently issued new guidance for medical schools to improve the accessibility of education for students with disabilities.
A straightforward disability rights story, correct?
Well, columnists in Britain are writing some pretty insulting things about Gadian, like Richard Hitchens who wrote in The Mail on Sunday: "If 'dyslexia' really exists, then surely it is quite reasonable for the authorities to forbid sufferers from practising as doctors, where a written mistake in a prescription or a misreading of a dose could be disastrous. Such 'discrimination', like a lot of other discrimination, is not only reasonable but urgently necessary."
And Stephen Pollard in The Times in the UK, opines in a column titled "I don't want to be treated by a dyslexic doctor": "Forgive me, Ms Gadian, but you're missing the point. You're not being discriminated against. You're being weeded out. It's quite deliberate. If you can't read or write sufficiently well to pass a multiple-choice test, you shouldn't be a doctor."
I don't pretend to know all about disability accommodation in Britain, but Gadian should receive proper accommodation for her disability just like anyone else with a disability. Accommodation doesn't mean she automatically passes her medical exams, just that she has an equal chance to take them in a format accessible to her.
