Kora

Kora’s family always expected her to be a doctor. From a young age she knew there was never another option.

In her submission, Kora told us she excelled in high school and it was no surprise when she was accepted to do medicine at a prestigious university.

At the beginning of her first year Kora disclosed to the university she had obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression which would affect her ability to study. Her doctor advised, ‘these conditions do exacerbate at times of stress and interfere with concentration, focus and energy’.

Kora said the director of student services told her she would either have to ‘bite the bullet’ and go through with the course or ‘fail out’. Furthermore, there would be no time adjustments during the semester or extension to the degree.

Feeling there was no other option, Kora decided to continue with her studies. She found the culture very non-accepting of people who were different, and there were instances of bullying and harassment in tutorial groups.

In the first semester of her second year, her illness was acute and she failed two out of four subjects. Kora explored possibilities with the school of medicine to reduce her workload and continue the year part time, but she was told there was no flexibility in the program and subjects couldn’t be completed out of order. She found this baffling because she wasn’t proposing to complete subjects out of order. She was forced to sit out the year and redo the subjects the following year.

Kora said she repeated the second year and prepared thoroughly for her end-of-year clinical exams.

‘I made sure I knew everything for my OSCEs – then on the final assessment my anxiety resurfaced, I ran out of time in all but two stations and I fell to pieces.’

The supplementary exams were scheduled to take place at a time when she was overseas with her family, and she was refused alternative dates.

Kora told us she received material about third-year orientation, but on the first day she was advised ‘her name wasn’t on the list’. Kora was told her enrolment had been cancelled. The reason given was that the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) she had been enrolled in had been replaced by the Doctor of Medicine (MD). This meant students now only had two chances to repeat failed courses rather than the three chances they had previously. Kora was out of chances.

Kora felt she had been treated unfairly. Not only was no consideration or support given to her after she disclosed her illness but also she was a victim of changing rules, caught in the cohort of students transitioning from an MBBS to an MD degree.

She complained to the university and the state health ombudsman to no avail. Some clinical tutors and the university counselling and disability staff were supportive, but they had no power to influence decisions.

Kora told us she doesn’t understand why some medical schools are able to ‘exert their autonomies over the rules of equity of the university to which they are affiliated’.

She would like to see more flexibility in medical training programs so students of different abilities can succeed. Kora said she feels that the ‘one size fits all approach’ she experienced dehumanises everyone.

Luckily she has found that not all institutions are the same. She is currently studying at a different university, ‘which is a much more supportive environment’.