Experiences of mistreatment among medical students in a University in south west Nigeria

Abstract

Most medical students experienced verbal forms of mistreatment and abuse during their training. Appropriate strategies for the prevention and reduction of medical student mistreatment should be developed.

Systematic review of the prevalence, impact and mitigating strategies for bullying, undermining behaviour and harassment in the surgical workplace

“…). A summary of the key findings from each of the 32 included papers is shown in Table S1 (supporting information).…”

Mistreatment in an academic setting and medical students' perceptions about their course in São Paulo, Brazil: a cross-sectional study

“…Since that time, studies conducted in different countries [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] have corroborated the high prevalence of different forms of aggression within medical education, thus giving support to the idea that these abusive situations reflect a strongly hierarchical medical culture.…”

“…It should be noted that this is an opportune time to bring this discussion to the forefront in this country, because the new national curriculum guidelines that were recently approved state that medical schools should be able to provide training for doctors to practice "general, humanistic, critical, reflective and ethical medicine (…) with social responsibility and commitment to the defense of citizenship [and] human dignity". 37 Considering the negative impact of mistreatment on mental health and wellbeing, and the way in which students perceive their course and academic achievements, 5,7,12,[16][17][18][19][20] occurrences of mistreatment during medical training have high potential to compromise quality of care and the way in which students approach their patients and their suffering. Mistreatment represents an additional source of stress for medical students that should be seriously taken into consideration by medical schools.…”

“…Those who are exposed feel more stressed and depressed, have low self-esteem and are more likely to consume alcohol and binge-drink. 5,7,12,[17][18][19] The different sources of stress to which medical students are exposed during their medical training are well known. 18,26,27 Medical education is hard to access and difficult to sustain, given the large amount of time dedicated to academic activities and the amount of suffering and distress that students need to cope with on a daily basis.…”

“…Although the effects on students' mental health, wellbeing and perceptions about medical education and academic achievements are well known, 5,7,12,[16][17][18][19][20] studies addressing the perceived severity and recurrence of mistreatment and the association with students' perceptions about their medical course are scarce. Most of the studies have been conducted in the US, and no data are available for Brazil.…”