On the culture of student abuse in medical school

Abstract

The abuse of students is ingrained in medical education, and has shown little amelioration despite numerous publications and righteous declarations by the academic community over the past decade. The culture of abuse conflicts with the renewed commitments of medical educators and practice professionals to imbue students with a higher degree of professionalism and cultural sensitivity. The authors describe the profiles of student abuse, drawn from recent national surveys of medical students using the AAMC Medical School Graduation Questionnaire, and focus on the most common forms of reported mistreatment--public belittlement and humiliation--that appear to be misguided efforts to reinforce learning. Along with others, the authors believe that the use of aversive methods to make students learn and behave is likely to foster insensitive and punitive behaviors that are passed down from teacher to learner, a "transgenerational legacy" that leads to future mistreatment of others by those who themselves have been mistreated. The undesirable result is compounded when these behaviors are adopted and directed toward patients and colleagues. The authors advocate more concerted action to curtail the abuse of medical students, citing current and proposed accreditation standards that will be employed more stringently by the LCME, and propose a series of more assertive actions that schools should take. The authors stress that the attitudes, behaviors, and values that students acquire in medical school are as much the products of their socialization as the outcomes of curricular design and pedagogy, and implore medical educators to tidy up the environment for learning.

Perception of Educational Environment Among Undergraduate Students in a Chiropractic Training Institution

“…1 It also postulates what it is like to be a learner within a given organization 1 and influences student behavior and the prediction of students' accomplishment, contentment, and success. 2,3 Educational environment studies have shown that there is a high price to be paid for dysfunctional and malfunctioning learning environments, [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] because the educational environment is an indispensable part of the curriculum, affecting the interaction between student, methods, assessment, and educational outcomes. 11 Therefore, evaluating the educational environment, especially in periods of curriculum change, is encouraged.…”

Student Abuse in Medical Colleges of Karachi, a Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study

“…After being familiarized to this meager issue of medical graduation, several scales and questionnaire were made to evaluate and identify the ratio of abuse as well as the cause. The Association of American Medical Colleges graduation questionnaires (AAMC GQs-2013) reported student mistreatment rates of 42.1% (Kassebaum and Cutler;1998). Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe (specifically in UK), the General Medical Council (GMC-2012) introduced a new indicator named 'Undermining'.…”

Sociología de la práctica médica autoritaria: violencia obstétrica, anticoncepción inducida y derechos reproductivos

“…Se postula incluso que existe una "cultura" del abuso de los estudiantes en las escuelas de Medicina que está vinculada a una sistemática "violación de la dignidad" en los servicios de salud (Uhary, 1994;Kassebaum y Cutler, 1998;Jacobson, 2009). …”