This month’s issue of Virtual Mentor, the AMA’s online ethics journal, addresses the topic of mistreatment in medical education, from current problems to possible solutions.
While medical schools and hospital systems are mandated to effectively address mistreatment of medical students and residents, medical student reports of mistreatment have not decreased since the problem was first documented more than 20 years ago.
Contributors to the March issue of Virtual Mentor sort out why reported incidents of mistreatment haven’t declined despite efforts to curb such behavior and identify major hurdles to reforming the environment.
Highlights from the issue include:
- “To bully and be bullied: Harassment and mistreatment in medical education.” Despite increased awareness of the problem, attempts at ameliorating medical student abuse have been largely unsuccessful.
- “Pimping: Report or do nothing?” By not reporting abusive faculty behavior, does a student place his or her grade over the larger good of promoting human dignity?
- “Moving away from hazing: The example of military initial entry training.” The eradication of hazing hasn’t diminished the socialization, camaraderie or commitment of new military recruits—the physical, emotional and mental demands of basic training suffice to produce the outcomes previously ascribed to hazing.
Visit the Virtual Mentor website to view the full March issue and participate in this month’s online ethics poll.
