The Jugular is investigating emerging reports that medical students doing their placements at a local hospital have been branded ‘a security threat’, no longer allowed access to critical areas of the institution. The new policy enacted approximately six months ago sees all local medical students refused entry to the operating theatres, ICU, emergency department, wards, and staff tea rooms without being accompanied by a doctor for fear of ‘incessant questioning and intolerable hovering’.
In a form of passive protest, staff toilets have now also been restricted with swipe-card-only access, forcing cardless medical students to go to the bathroom in squalor amongst the rest of the community.
“This is ridiculous,” vented one senior medical student. “We are Senior Medical Students and universal hospital access is critical for our learning. We are tired of being trapped in places like locked stairwells for over an hour because our team forgot about us when we stopped momentarily to pick up a pen and then the door closed behind them and you don’t have a swipe-card or mobile signal and after about five minutes you can feel the walls closing in and you start thinking ‘Oh my God I haven’t even planned my will and my family will be devastated I can’t believe I’m going to die before graduation and-’”. She cleared her throat. “You get trapped one time and interns start calling you ‘Dr Rapunzel’ forever. Unbelievable.”
When questioned about the supposed claim that elective students from overseas receive unrestricted access to all areas of the hospital, including tea rooms, Mr Max Lockdowney, head of security department at this particular hospital commented that “Overseas students do not exceed their daily milk allotment of 4L, and they certainly to do attempt to replenish their supply by stealing from the radiology tea rooms”.
“They may legally be adults, but these students are in desperate need of a chaperone. At all times. I can’t tell you how many table-tennis injuries I’ve seen over the past decade…Seventy-three.”
Although unsubstantiated, there are claims that a faction of medical students at this hospital have resolved to attend all placements dressed like Plague Doctors during the Black Death, as a reminder of the true perils of hospital-acquired infections. While the plan is less than genius, at least in comparison to one of the worst epidemics in Western history, perhaps medical students won’t seem all that insufferable.