Life sciences degree students at the University of Reading have been issued with a booklet warning that they might see upsettingly graphic images of the human body in material featured on the syllabus (Mail, Sun, Telegraph).
Under a section labelled “trigger warnings”, the university highlights “topics that some people may find challenging”.
The course log continues: “Every week will include potentially graphic images or videos showing the human body, as well as content on specific health conditions or diseases/death.”
In the booklet, students are also advised that they should seek consent from their peers when performing mock medical examinations on each other.
Notes for the anatomy and physiology module add that that those who are “uncomfortable” with touching others “can either observe or work on their own body”.
The move has led to criticism from healthcare professionals, including NHS GP Dr Renée Hoenderkamp. She told the Sun: “This trigger warning scenario is actually creating the problem they’re trying to avoid.
“Let’s say even one student decides that, because of a trigger warning, they won’t look at pictures or take part in a practical lesson.
She added: “Not only does this stop students from getting involved, it will affect their preparedness for whatever career they choose.”
In response, a university spokesperson said: “We follow best practice on the content and description of our courses.
“People who aspire to work in healthcare will expect to encounter bodies and diseases.
“We think it is fair to students to tell them accurately what they will be studying, and it may be helpful to them as they choose a career.”
It comes amid the seemingly unstoppable rise of safetyism on campus, with ever more works of literature getting slapped with trigger warnings.
Last month, a prestigious Russell Group university placed such a warning on Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales because of its potentially offensive “expressions of Christian faith”.
Under Freedom of Information (FoI) laws, the Mail on Sunday obtained details of the notice issued to students at the University of Nottingham who are enrolled on a module called ‘Chaucer and His Contemporaries’. It alerts them to incidences of violence, mental illness and expressions of Christian faith in the works of Chaucer as well as other medieval writers, including William Langland, John Gower and Thomas Hoccleve.
A spokesperson for the university said it “champions diversity”, adding: “Even those who are practising Christians will find aspects of the late-medieval worldview… alienating and strange.”
In 2022, a Times investigation uncovered 1,081 ‘trigger warnings’ applied to texts across undergraduate courses in the UK.
During the investigation, academics attempted to block the newspaper from discovering details about changes to their reading lists, using social media to encourage each other not to comply with FoI requests, while some universities declined to answer on the grounds that disclosure would have a “potentially negative personal impact” on staff.
Despite these attempts to obstruct the investigation, it revealed that 10 universities, including Russell Group members Warwick, Exeter and Glasgow, had actually removed or made optional books that students might find ‘harmful’.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, a novel intended to illuminate the horrors of slavery, was removed from a reading list by Essex University for containing “graphic description of violence and abuse of slavery”.
Likewise, Miss Julie by August Strindberg, a play tackling themes of mental anguish, was removed from the Sussex syllabus because it “contains discussion of suicide”.
It remains unclear why university administrators feel they have the right to decide that the “harm” to students that books of this kind supposedly risk outweighs the intellectual benefits that they would undoubtedly confer upon them.
