Students accuse Australian College of Emergency Medicine of racism

The Australian College of Emergency Medicine has been accused of racism by more than 30 non-white students.

The Australian College of Emergency Medicine has been accused of systemic racism.

The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine has been accused of systemic racism by more than 30 non-white doctors, who have revealed their white colleagues are 13 times more likely to be admitted as emergency specialists.

The doctors have lodged a highly detailed 34-page complaint with the college showing that, of 204 candid­ates participating in the program for the second half of last year, non-white candidates — who make up more than a quarter of all enrolments — had a clinical exam pass rate of just 6.8 per cent.

That compared with a pass rate of 88 per cent for their white classmates. The clinical exam is the last hurdle for doctors attempting to become emergency specialists and exams are taken twice a year.

The group of 33 non-white doctors who have filed the complaint say the vast disparity in results­ cannot be explained by poorer skills or language issues, given they have worked alongside their white counterparts for years in hospitals and shared the same training. The doctors were all fluent­ in English, and many spoke English as their first language.

“That the college would pass less than 10 per cent of the non-caucasian cohort, deeming the rest unfit to be emergency medicine specialists, while passing the vast majority of caucasian candidates is embarrassing to the college,” write the students. “It is far out of step with community standards as well as being clearly ... discrim­in­atory.”

College spokesman Fin Bird said: “We can’t comment on the specifics of any case … to respec­t the integrity of the process and confidentiality of the applic­ants.’’

The group of doctors — who have requested confidentiality for fear of career repercussions — want the college to “statistically modify” last year’s clinical exam results to “remove the clear elemen­t of racial bias from them”.

The doctors have also filed the complains to the Australian Medical Council, which oversees grants and accreditation of the ACEM and all other specialist medical training colleges. Council chief executive Ian Frank told The Weekend Australian his organisation was aware of the complaint but was seeking more details before­ it could comment further.

In 2015, the Australian Medical Council introduced new policy regardi­ng assessment and accreditation standards and this year, for the first time, the college will have its accreditation practices reviewed under the new standards.

The doctors said while the college did not publish student results, they had been in contact with 59 non-white colleagues from last year and found just four had passed the clinical exam. One of those students who spoke with The Weekend Australian said he had repeatedly failed the exam and the “racial discrim­in­ation” had a demoralising effect on him and many others.

“We are looked down on by our fellow colleagues and consultants after repeated failures as if we are not trustworthy,” he said. “This exam had made me lose the happiness I had working in emergency medicine.”

The complaint listed pass rates for all hospitals where ACEM doctors worked. At Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital all four white candidates passed, but all five non-white candidates failed. At Canberra Hospital, one of the two white candidates passed while all three non-white candidates failed; and at Brisbane’s Prince Charles Hospital all four white candidates passed while the only two non-white candidates failed.

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