Reports of unprofessional behaviour by healthcare workers highlights the need for a culture change within the NHS, say medical student leaders. The research included 680 reports of memorable dilemmas within the previous 12 months from 2,327 students at 29 of the UK’s 32 medical schools.
The students were surveyed between January and March 2011. UK students not only reported seeing doctors acting unprofessionally towards patients, but also towards their colleagues and medical students. The researchers found doctors speaking inappropriately with patients and swearing at colleagues on wards, while students were going beyond their competencies, and carrying out examinations without valid consent. The hundreds of professional dilemmas reported by UK medical students included an incident in which a member of a clinical team filmed the restraint of a dementia patient using a camera phone. One student recalled seeing another performing a rectal examination on an anaesthetised patient without consent. Four others were instructed by a clinician to examine a patient who had not been asked for his or her consent and who was tired and refused to participate. A fourth year said he watched a consultant shouting and swearing loudly in the middle of the ward at a doctor in training. BMA medical students committee deputy chair, Melody Redman, believes that the report findings emphasise the need for safe environments in which to share concerns and said the research chimed with the findings of a bullying culture within the NHS by Robert Francis QC, in his report on the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. She said: “While at medical school we are taught values of professionalism, what we see from examples on the ward may be a different story. There are many excellent tutors but, unfortunately, you only need to see one bad example to leave a lasting scar, which, sadly, I’m sure some of us can identify with.” The survey findings are part of a larger, eight-year study of 2,000 reports of professionalism lapses from 4,000 students in the UK and Australia.
