On Being a Doctor: Shining a Light on the Dark Side

Speaking up about traditional and professionalism-related patient safety threats: a national survey of interns and residents

“…In addition, as professionalism-related safety threats are increasingly recognised, we provide quantitative data on both prevalence and resident responses to such behaviours in the clinical learning environment, as called for by thought leaders to help better frame the problem and motivate solutions 28. Similar to prior studies,12 13 15 17 25 46 we found the likelihood of speaking up to be highly context-dependent, offering additional insights for organisational leaders to best support such advocacy.…”

“…While a growing literature describes factors influencing speaking up about patient safety threats,13–17 27 far less is known about how often residents encounter such threats and whether they speak up about them 28. Moreover, research to date has largely considered safety threats uniformly, without discriminating between traditional and professionalism-related safety threats, even though important differences may exist between the two.…”

Bearing witness: United States and Canadian maternity support workers’ observations of disrespectful care in childbirth

“…In 2014, a North American–based grassroots movement, Improving Birth, emerged as a visible social media presence through its #BreakTheSilence campaign, which highlighted stories of individual women (and their partners) who felt traumatized or victimized by disrespectful care in childbirth . A 2015 article in the Annals of Internal Medicine described two incidents of disrespectful obstetric care with “heavy overtones of sexual assault and racism” from the perspective of United States physician trainees . The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exposed hundreds of complaints about disrespectful maternity care in Canadian hospitals in 2016 .…”

Trends from the educators for anesthesia and critical care 2014/15

“…But similar things can also happen in our specialty at any place and time. In an accompanying editorial "Shining a Light on the Dark Side" [21] the editorial board members "hope that medical educators and others will use this essay as a jumping-off point for discussions that explore the reasons why physicians sometimes behave badly and brainstorm strategies for handling these ugly situations in real time". Another article in Academic Medicine [22] reflects the handicap of those lower in hierarchy to speak up when things go wrong.…”