A DYSLEXIC medical student has launched a legal battle to stop sufferers of the condition being forced to sit "discriminatory" multiple choice exams.
Naomi Gadian claims she has had to resit some of her courses because she cannot deal with the way they are set.
Now she plans to take action against the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in Plymout
h, where she studies, under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
The 21-year-old, from Manchester, said: "In normal life, you don't get multiple choice questions. Your patients aren't going to ask, 'Here's an option and four answers. Which one is right?'"
Her solicitor, John MacKenzie, said legal action was in its early stages and no date or venue had been set for a tribunal hearing.
He said Ms Gadian's college mainly used multiple choice questions for assessments of medical students, which was placing her at a disadvantage.
"Naomi is very bright, dedicated and hardworking," he said. "She also has a form of dyslexia which means she has difficulty with multiple choice questions."
But the GMC said exams were controlled by individual colleges. A spokeswoman added: "The GMC does not prescribe the reasonable adjustments that should be made by medical schools with respect to students with disabilities and has no statutory power to do so.
"However, we have recently issued new guidance for medical schools, which outlines ideas and offers practical advice to help them put adjustments in place to improve the accessibility of medical education for students with disabilities."
A spokesman from Miss Gadian's college, which is part of the University of Exeter, said that a number of students suffering from dyslexia had already graduated.
He said: "Our ultimate responsibility is to produce doctors of the highest quality who are fit for practice, and any reasonable adjustments we have made for students with dyslexia reflect this objective."
Sue Flohr, of the British Dyslexic Association, said the organisation had produced guidelines for employers, including avoiding multiple choice questions which could be "discriminatory for dyslexic candidates".
