After my elective in Cambodia last summer, I came back to uni for final year and found out that I had been unfairly branded a snitch. Now I am a lot of things, a self-proclaimed Goody Two Shoes and Suck-Up sometimes, yes, but one thing I most certainly am not is a snitch, so I thought it was about time I told my side of the story.
It all began July last year. We were preparing for year 4 exams and upcoming electives, so it was a pretty hectic time. One evening, while I was having dinner with my housemates, the topic of taking pictures on electives came up. I told my housemates how strongly against taking photos of little kids and patients in foreign countries I was, because this is something that is frequently done by people who travel overseas to volunteer, or by those on electives, and then these photos are usually posted on Instagram and Facebook.
I made the point that it wouldn’t be done in the UK, so it just shows disregard for “foreign” people, because the same rules on patient confidentiality, safeguarding and privacy should apply overseas. Ofcourse it also feeds into the perpetuating of negative stereotypes, as whole continents are often generalised, and it’s just quite unfair because in most cases, the people in these photos are not white. After saying all this to my housemates, I joked that I would go out of my way to privately message anyone who put such pictures up, to let them know all the points mentioned above – I was so sure it wouldn’t need to come to that. I was wrong.
Flash forward to a couple of weeks later, I was in Cambodia with Samirah, and I started noticing that people in my year were posting photos on Facebook and Instagram of newborn babies, little children and patients they had seen. It was really bad.
I decided to back myself and messaged a couple of people to let them know why it wasn’t okay. The responses I received varied from apologetic (these people took their posts down straightaway), to defensive (these people argued that they had gotten consent, which ofcourse I accepted and apologised for offence) to angry, and then to just plain mean. I won’t repeat the things I was told by the latter groups of people, but some of it was not very nice.
I spent a couple of days being a bit sad about how my actions had been misconstrued, as people were still continuing to post photos on social media. Then it was suggested that perhaps if the message was from an official source, like the medical school, people would take it more seriously, as ofcourse no one would want to risk disciplinary action.
This led to Samirah and I emailing our head of year and the elective leads at the medical school. We laid out all the concerns mentioned above, highlighted the point that we had had no lectures or talks on this issue before we set off for our electives, and suggested that the medical school send out an email to the year to let them know that it wasn’t okay.
I must emphasise that we DID NOT give any names, or take any screenshots, or fill out concern forms about anybody. This was something that the med school put pressure on us to do, as they argued that they could not take action without evidence, but we were pretty adamant that it was unfair to scapegoat people. AND I AM NO SNITCH.
The elective lead eventually sent out this email to the year:
Not going to lie, I saw it and got a bit teary. They listened to us!!!!
Moving forward, Samirah and I were asked to do a talk to current elective students about the Dos and Don’ts of Photography whilst on elective, and this is a topic that has now been included in the elective curriculum for future years. YAY!
Anyway, the point of this post? Just because most people are doing something doesn’t make it okay. If you feel something is wrong, speak up and do something about it if you can. People might be mean and spread untrue stuff about you, but I’ve learnt that those are the people you really don’t need in your life anyway.
Finally, and most importantly: I AM NOT A SNITCH.
Life As A Junior Doctor 