During a seminar at the Faculty of Medicine several racist and xenophobic comments were submitted via an anonymous service. Vice Dean Thomas Hellmark says there will be no punishment for the medical students that wrote the comments.
In a seminar about stress related to migration, trauma & torture, students were asked how to best help a fictional patient ’Fatima’. The fictional patient was described to have PTSD after experiancing torture in Afghanistan and had been granted a temporary resident permit.
The answers were anonymously submitted online and displayed in class, where students noticed racist comments such as ”buy a ticket home” and ” contact the re-migration agency”. The incident occurred just weeks after Lund’s medical programme was revealed to be the second most popular course at the university. Medical student Daniella states that even before these comments were submitted, the course unit was a delicate topic.
– It was a very sensitive subject and some of my classmates were very sad and upset from listening.
Once students became aware of the comments the atmosphere in the classroom changed, according to Daniella, and other attending students started to voice their dismay.
– ”What are you doing, how is it possible for someone who is supposed to be a doctor in the future to write this?”.
It took several days for the faculty to address the incident.
– After three days they wrote something out to all of us, just apologising that this incident happened but there was not going to be any type of punishment because they don’t know who did this and as it’s anonymous they can’t find out who it is, unless they call the police
Vice Dean at the Faculty of Medicine, Thomas Hellmark expands on this letter:
– It described the programme’s point of view on what happened. They have also described the alternatives that the students have if they need support, including student counsellor or welfare officer at the faculty, studenthälsan, teachers on the course or the programme management. They have also contacted the students that have filed a complaint including their name and discussed both the specific incident and problems more generally at the programme.
— I was very disappointed that this was one of my classmates and that this person is not going to be caught and is going to continue on and become a doctor, with this sort of mindset and opinions, to know I could meet these types of doctors scares me, Daniella says regarding attending lectures since the incident
When asked about the possibility of punishment, Vice Dean at the Faculty of Medicine, Thomas Hellmark states:
— The racist comments were written anonymously, we have no possibility of failing them on the course. After discussion with the pro vice chancellor we have decided that this errand will not be reported to the police. So in short there will be no punishment.
This is not the first time the Faculty of Medicine has come under fire, with reports of racism and sexism dating back to 2017.
