HMS Student Wins in Court

A Harvard medical student won her appeal yesterday to get extra break time to express breast milk into a bottle during a medical certification exam, but the board regulating the test has already appealed the decision.

Judge Gary S. Katzmann of the Massachusetts Appeals Court ordered the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) to grant the sought-for break time to Sophie C. Currier, an MD-PhD student at Harvard Medical School (HMS) currently nursing a five-month-old infant.

NBME spokeswoman Carol Thompson said the board was appealing the ruling in order to “maintain fairness for all examinees and the integrity of the test.”

Currier’s looming Oct. 4 and 5 test dates drove the swift judicial review that led to yesterday’s ruling.

Like all physicians, Currier cannot graduate from HMS or begin her scheduled residency until she passes the licensing exam.

Katzmann rejected the NBME’s argument that the exam’s integrity would be harmed by extra break time for lactation.

The board “has made no showing that permitting the petitioner sixty minutes of additional break time on each testing day will in any way disrupt the national standard for the exam,” he wrote in the opinion.

Katzmann also cited the potential for pain or medical injury from infection or breast engorgement if Currier were not given extra break time to express milk.

“[I]t is undisputed that the petitioner will suffer physical pain from breast engorgement if she is not permitted additional time,” he wrote. “Such physical pain constitutes an unfair burden on the mental energies required for this examination.”

Christine Smith Collins, the attorney representing Currier, said the decision could set precedent beyond Massachusetts.

“I think that the reasoning would probably hold up under most states’ constitutions,” she said.

Katzmann’s opinion overturned a decision last week by Judge Patrick F. Brady of Norfolk Superior Court, who ruled in favor of the NBME.

Currier asked in her suit for 60 minutes per day of break time on top of the 45 minutes given test takers during the eight-hour exam day.

Currier said after her Tuesday hearing that the accommodations offered by the NBME—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.”

The NBME previously agreed 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.

Currier could not be reached for an interview today, but she wrote in an e-mail yesterday that she was focused on studying for the exam.

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