DIY doctors: New Zealand medical students "operating on themselves at home"

A number of medical students at New Zealand’s oldest university are practising invasive medical procedures on their own bodies, and the bodies of their fellow students.

A study published today in the New Zealand Medical Journal found 5% of medical students surveyed by researchers at Otago University medical school in Dunedin are practising in what is believed to give the aspiring medics stress-free conditions in which to hone their skills.

Procedures include inserting IVs, withdrawing blood and removing cysts on their own or other students bodies, some in their own homes using pilfered equipment.

The survey’s sample size was 284 students from a cohort of 800 in their fourth, fifth and sixth year of medical study.

Five percent – or 15 students – described practising on themselves or fellow students.

Co-author and deputy vice-chancellor Helen Nicholson said the findings were “very concerning” and warranted immediate further investigation.
“At the moment we don’t really know why the students are doing this, but anecdotally we have been told it is to practice their skills in a private and stress-free environment,” said Nicholson.

“It is pretty strange behaviour. We know some students were doing these procedures at home, with equipment they had taken from the hospital. So we do have serious concerns that this sort of behaviour is not displaying self-care or a professional attitude.”

Nicholson said while there were plenty of reports of doctors self-diagnosing and self-prescribing, to her knowledge this was the first study to identify students practicing medical procedures on themselves.

The most common practice the medical students tested on themselves was the insertion of an IV line into a vein, and the most common procedure students tested on each other was taking blood.

Nicholson said taking blood, removing a cyst or mole and inserting an IV were all particularly difficult procedures to perform on your own body, and all of them involved some degree of pain.

Professor Barry Taylor, dean of the Dunedin School of Medicine, said it was “pretty common” for students to practice a range of medical procedures on themselves such as using an ultrasound, examining inside each others ears or taking blood pressure.

But Prof Taylor said he drew the line at students practicing any surgical procedures on themselves or each other, and doing so in their own homes with no clinical supervision was dangerous.

“There is a broad philosophy in medicine that doctors shouldn’t promote what they haven’t experienced,” said Prof Taylor.

“And if you are practising on yourself you could argue that you are certainly getting informed consent. But the risks of something going wrong are similar to if you are treating a family member, which we discourage because you are not in a position to make unbiased or objective decisions.

“Taking blood and removing cysts are definitely on the margins of acceptable and could potentially be dangerous procedures if something goes wrong.”

DIY doctors: New Zealand medical students "operating on themselves at home"