“We are not taught to ask for patient consent”, regretted Marielle, medical student and signatory of an open letter published on franceinfo.fr to denounce medical violence. Following several cases, including that of the gynecologist Émile Daraï, suspected of rape, and permanently withdrawn from his responsibilities as head of department at Tenon hospital in Paris, health students grouped within associations and collectives wished to provide support to the victims. “We can’t take any more of this violence that we see every day. We would like that to change”, testified Marielle.
franceinfo: What drives you to publish this column? The business of gynecologist Emile Daraï?
Marielle: It is violence that we see almost every day at different scales. Deep down, we all wanted to react. But really, seeing this case gain in media coverage prompted us to say that it was our moment, we also had to intervene. It was to express our support to people victims of violence to all patients who are mistreated by this medical system. And also, it was a way of saying that we wanted to break with the old system as health students. It is medical students, but also physiotherapy and pharmacy students who sign this forum today. We would like to say that we want to change things, that we are tired of this violence that we see every day and that we would like that to change, that we no longer want this status quo. We would like to be able to denounce this violence in an open manner and be able to discuss it together.
Is this systemic violence?
Yes, completely! This is what we support with the collective and we see every day at different scales. We see the health system being abusive towards these users. The biases of society are reproduced very strongly in the medical system with micro-attacks or real attacks that are sexist, homophobic, racist, transphobic. We see this every day between comments on the weight of patients and comments on their sexuality. Things that should no longer take place today and touching that we have seen in consultation and also the lack of consent in the care. Most of the time, we are not taught to seek patient consent before making the gestures. And still too often, we have women who are left half-naked in gynecology consultation. We would like to change all that.
What would it take to “change all that”? Is it a training problem?
There is a very hierarchical system that prevents denouncing violence. Two things are claimed in this letter. First, horizontality. We would like to get rid of this hierarchy of nursing patients. We would like to have a more horizontal system with the voice of patients at the center. We have observed, for example, in medical training, that patients are rarely invited to our training. We hear a lot of things from doctors, but we would like to have patient groups, nurses, midwives, and a variety of training courses.