Good God, now we're going to have to carry around phrase books to go with our medical emergency bracelets

“No no, he can breathe, I promise! But he may be pregnant — will that help?”

Med school apologizes for including phrase “I can’t breath” on exam

Medical patients may want to find a new way to convey their pulmonary distress, lest they be accused of triggering someone.

The Indiana University School of Medicine apologized to students for a question on a cardiovascular exam that included the phrase “I can’t breath[e],” according to screenshots of the question (above) and message to seniors in “All Sections” (below) that were forwarded to The College Fix. The question reads:

A patient who missed dialysis suddenly becomes pale, diaphoretic, and screams, “I can’t breath!” [sic] You glance at the monitor and notice the following rhythm. You are unable to palpate a pulse and initiate immediate CPR. The most appropriate next step in therapy is: [the options for answers are not visible]

The apology message, which is undated, was written by Daniel Corson-Knowles, assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine.

“We are very sorry to have included content, specifically the words used to express difficulty breathing, within a case presented last week in the cardiovascular quiz in a context that was insensitive and upsetting due to the similarity to phrases associated with the killing of George Floyd and several other instances of police violence against black people in the U.S.,” he wrote. (The phrase took on political significance, however, because Eric Garner said it several times as New York City police pinned him down.)

Seeing the phrase in this context “resulted in a very painful trigger for many of you,” and the school “adjusted this material as soon as we learned of this oversight on Friday,” Corson-Knowles continued. ….

Corson-Knowles said the question was “written long ago and reflected phrasing” that patients might use when “experiencing cardiac or pulmonary difficulties,” but that does not excuse the school for “not catching this very phrase and removing it when preparing the quiz material.”

The professor added that the school was “in the process of reviewing practices cases for the potential presence of intrinsic bias, microaggressions and other content that can help perpetuate stereotypes and affect how students feel, learn, perceive and treat their patients and how this translates into patients’ outcomes.”