The Californian parents of a St Andrews University student who died a week before finishing her degree are to sue the doctors responsible for her care.

Kaitlyn Vasconcellos was 24, and just one final exam away from completing her economics degree when she was found dead in her university accommodation in May 2015.

Papers have been lodged at the Court of Session in Edinburgh seeking personal damages on behalf of her father Guy Vasconcellos, her mother Linda and her brother Craig and Sister Brooke, and Grandmother Dolores McCall.

The claims are being made against doctors at the Pipeland Medical Practice in St Andrews, and the health boards NHS Fife and NHS Tayside.

In the week she died, Kaitlyn had complained of stomach pains and and had been briefly hospitalised. She had also undergone treatment for an unexplained infection two months earlier, which she fought for two weeks, which involved surgery.

Police were called after she was found in her room at Agnes Blackadder Hall of Residence, but she is understood to have already passed away.

Kaitlyn, known as Kate to her friends and family, was awarded a posthumous (honours) in Applied Economics by St Andrews University in 2015. Her mother and sister, who are from Rocklin, California, have been in Scotland this week to take part in the St Andrews 'pier jump' - a tradition whereby students run off the end of the town's pier, leaping into the North Sea before swimming back to climb back up using the ladders or steps. On what would have been Kate's 28th birthday on June 27th, her mother read her honours thesis in front of the economics building.

A bench with a plaque in her honour has also been installed outside Agnes Blackadder Hall.

Mrs Vasconcellos told the student paper The Saint that she wanted to ensure Kate was not forgotten and that she and Brooke were "carrying her spirit forward and keeping it alive."

Kate was a "very kind and giving person", and full of life she said. A lover of musical theatre, she had originally enrolled at the University of Southern California to study theatre arts, but had changed her mind. She wanted to study in a different country and was attracted by the idea of attending a university centuries older than the USA itself, friends said.

She was the first heterosexual person join the board of the St Andrews LGBT+ society and had taken part in the annual Drag Walk.

Along with her friends she had made plans to do the pier jump before graduation, Mrs Vasconcellos added. "She so loved Scotland and her years there."

Professor Louise Richardson, who was principal of St Andrews when Kaitlyn died, paid tribute to her at the time, saying: "she brimmed with energy and immersed herself in her studies and extracurricular pursuits. She was a member of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society and was also a committed supporter of our LGBT Society."

Staff and teachers had been shocked and saddened by her death, she said. "They will remember Kate as a quiet, thoughtful and determined student with an unfailingly pleasant nature."

Edinburgh-based Balfour and Manson, who are acting for the Vasconcellos family, have named a number of local doctors in the legal action, including Dr Allan Scott, Dr Katherine Russell, Dr Nicholas Haldane and Dr Alison Bowman, as well as the two health boards.

Further details of the claim have not been revealed and the case is not expected to be called to court until early in the new year.

Pipeland Medical Centre declined to comment on the legal action.

NHS Fife did not respond to requests for comment.