When Iram Qureshi of Dublin, Ohio was dismissed from the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine last month after having to repeat her first year and then failing two “systems” in her second year after she stopped attending classes, she did what any normal American Muslim woman would seem to do these days – she called the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and sued.

Tragically, perhaps fatally one day for one of her future patients, a Kanawha County Circuit Court judge has granted her a temporary restraining order so that she could resume her “studies” and clinical rotation beginning this month while her dismissal appeal is reviewed, the Charleston Gazette reports. Curiously, the Charleston Gazette waits until half-way through their article before telling readers that the cause of her dismissal was poor academic performance, not religious discrimination.

Her academic failure, however, hasn’t stopped her attorney, James McQueen, from making a series of allegations of religious discrimination in her defense, including her reluctance to conduct chest and pelvic examinations on male subjects. She claims that her alleged persecution grew so bad, she stopped attending classes altogether and is now forced to take anxiety medication.

Qureshi’s pretended plight has garnered significant attention in the medical community nationwide, with at least one medical student online forum engaging in extensive debate about the situation, including some of Qureshi’s classmates. Many of the participating students seem unsympathetic to her claims for preferred treatment even beyond what many other female Muslim students have agreed to, as the following comments represent:

I do not think it would be fair for Muslim or any other students to be assigned to same sex partners during lab. There are plenty of female Muslim students who have successfully completed programs who I'm sure all have not been afforded this preference. I can see if you choose an area of women's health as your residency, but for your 3rd and 4th year you are going to be required to treat both men and women. If it an issue for the student not to be touched, the same argument could be made that they would not feel comfortable touching a man, which as a student of medicine is not feasible.

And –

Regarding the religious issue: we had Muslim women in my class too. I know occasionally they requested pairing with a female, but most of the time they knew they'd have to learn how to do techniques on male patients too so they just dealt with it. And they also were required to test on randomly assigned partners - which could be male. No problems. They were fully aware that medicine involved both learning about BOTH sexes. It sounds like she was dismissed for academic reasons. I hope the school stands their ground.

This drama is yet another episode of CAIR’s cultural jihadist grievance theater, a widespread phenomenon I’ve reported on previously. The medical jihad is a somewhat new phenomenon in the US, but has already reached the level of open warfare in the UK.

For instance, earlier this year it was reported by The Sun that Muslim medical students were refusing new directives on washing “bare past the elbow” to prevent the spread of aggressive “superbugs”, such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile. Reports from Leicester, Sheffield and Birmingham Universities found female Muslim students refusing to wash their wrists and forearms in accordance with Department of Health guidelines – putting the lives of patients at risk (as I can personally attest, having survived a near-fatal MRSA infection).

In that instance, the Muslim students were supported by the spokesman of the UK Islamic Medical Association, Dr. Abdul Majid Katme, who said, “No practicing Muslim woman doctor, medical student, nurse or patient should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow”. An Islamonline article on this topic quoted Muslim medical student claiming that the issue was being used by the “racist media” to fuel religious hatred. (In fairness, the Islamic Medical Association of North America issued a press release expressing their disagreement with the IMA’s stance and supporting the British Department of Health hygiene measures.)

This is not the first time that IMA’s Dr. Katme has waded into scientific controversy. Last year he publicly urged Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases, such as measles, mumps, and rubella, condemning the practice as “un-Islamic”. “If you breastfeed your child for two years - as the Koran says - and you eat Koranic food like olives and black seed, and you do ablution each time you pray, then you will have a strong defence system,” he told The Independent. Dr. Katme is a psychiatrist.

Another disturbing pattern seen by Muslim medical professionals in the UK is the promotion of the view that the practice of medicine is primarily to advance the Islamic religion and to better the health of Muslims, and not all patients, as specifically expressed in the constitution of the Muslim Doctors and Dentists Association UK:

2. Objects and powers

2.1 The objects of the association shall be:-
2.1.1. To advance the Islamic religion in the practice of medicine in the United Kingdom.
2.1.2. To advance medical education in relation to the doctrines, practices and traditions of the Islamic religion.
2.1.3. To promote research in various aspects of medical science and to disseminate and publish the useful results of such research.
2.1.4. To promote the preservation and protection of the good health of Muslims in the United Kingdom.

No mention is made in their objectives about the preservation and protection of non-Muslims.

As with many Islamization trends, what has begun in Europe inevitably spreads to the US. It is also worth noting that one additional dangerous trend amongst Muslim medical professionals – refusing to use standard alcohol rubs – is currently an entirely Western issue as virtually all Middle Eastern hospitals use the rubs, including 200 hospitals in the Saudi Kingdom and the Gulf States. Even the revered medical journal, The Lancet, has spoken out on the issue.

With that in mind, US health authorities had best begin to address these issues of preferential accommodation and potentially lethal claims of exception by Muslims, because as the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine situation has clearly shown, the issues are quickly jumping the pond.