Ruling Expected Today in Breast-Feeding Case

BOSTON—Days after a superior judge ruled against her, a Harvard medical student appeared in appeals court yesterday in her bid for extra break time to express milk into a bottle during a medical certification exam.

Attorneys for Sophie C. Currier, an MD-PhD student at the Harvard Medical School (HMS), and the organization that sets rules for the exam squared off yesterday in front of Judge Gary S. Katzmann of the Massachusetts Appeals Court.

Sophie C. Currier, an MD-PhD student at the Harvard Medical School (HMS), and the organization that sets rules for the exam squared off yesterday in front of Judge Gary S. Katzmann of the Massachusetts Appeals Court.
Katzmann said he would announce his decision today in light of Currier’s looming test date early next month.

Currier, who is currently nursing a 4-month-old baby, is seeking an additional 60 minutes a day of break time on top of the 45 minutes given test takers during the eight-hour exam day.

She cannot graduate HMS or begin her scheduled residency until she passes the licensing exam.

Currier said yesterday that the accommodations beings offered by the National Board of Medical Examiners—which include a private room, multiple breast pumps, and the option to bring food or drink into the exam room—would create humiliating and even unhygienic testing conditions.

"Milk is actually a biohazard—it can have viruses... I’d be sitting there in front of a video monitor, with a painful pump on, spilling milk on a computer that everybody uses," she said. "It would be inhumane and it would be unsanitary."

Not expressing milk every two to three hours can lead to medical complications, such as breast engorgement, fever, or infection, registered nurse Marsha Walker wrote in an affidavit filed on Currier’s behalf.

In addition, a nursing mother with a 4-month-old child should express milk every three hours, Walker said in the affidavit.

Joseph F. Savage Jr., a lawyer, representing the examining board, said during oral arguments yesterday that granting extra break time for lactation would “compromise” the integrity of the exam, which is required by HMS for graduation and by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine to begin a residency program.

“The position of the board is the test ought to be fair for everybody,” Savage said.

“We’ve done a lot of things to make breast-feeding easy and possible here, so she ought to take the test the same as everyone else.”

Currier’s lawyer Christine S. Collins rejected that argument.

“They can’t explain how giving a nursing mother additional time would detrimentally affect the exam,” Currier said. “There’s no reason why women should have to choose between following medical advice and advancing their careers.”

While HMS has no role in the dispute, the school’s spokesman, Don L. Gibbons, said yesterday that newly appointed HMS Dean Jeffrey S. Flier and Dean of Medical Education Jules L. Dienstag wrote to the board in August to urge the formation of a subcommittee to modify the current policy on lactating exam takers.

Last week, Judge Patrick F. Brady of Norfolk Superior Court ruled in favor of the examining board, citing the accommodations they had offered Currier.

Earlier in the year, the board denied Currier’s request for extra time because it does not consider lactation to fall within the scope of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the guidelines the board uses to determine eligibility for testing accommodations.

They did agree to grant Currier a second day of test time because she has dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, conditions it considers covered by the ADA.

—Staff writer Clifford M. Marks can be reached at cmarks@fas.harvard.edu.