Medical students say bullying in the profession must stop

The Australian Medical Students Association's (AMSA) says that suicide rates for medical students are significantly higher than the average rate for students and has called for an end to bullying in the profession.

The AMSA says the practice of humiliation and harassment of students in some areas of medical teaching has to stop.

Dr. Sally Cockburn who was speaking at the Australian Medical Students' Association National Convention says there needs to be a big change in the way cases of bullying are handled within the medical profession in order to ensure students are protected and she says change is long overdue.

Dr. Cockburn says she is astounded to hear that a culture of fear still exists in medicine, amongst students and residents, and within more senior ranks, especially in the public hospital system.

She says many students and doctors are afraid to speak up about abuse for fear of career reprisals.

According to Dr. Cockburn research suggests the situation is the same in other countries - a survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found 46.4% of all respondents stated that they had been abused at some time while enrolled in medical school, with 80.6% of seniors reporting being abused by the senior year.

Dr. Cockburn says the cycle of the abused medical student becoming the abusive teacher must be broken and says doctors need better training in how to teach effectively, students need to be given safe ways to speak up and post graduate clinical training needs to be more accountable.

AMSA president, Michael Bonning, says bullying by teachers has been accepted for too long and the issue was of utmost importance to the next generation of medical students as the issue of bullying in the workplace is intimately linked with student well being.