What is Mistreatment?
The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences is a community of learners, faculty and staff who share responsibility for creating and maintaining a positive, inclusive, learning and work environment where all participants are valued and treated with respect. Learners and faculty in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences are required to conduct themselves in accordance with the Code of Conduct.
Learner mistreatment is disrespectful or unprofessional behaviour directed at a learner or a group of learners that has a negative effect on the learner or the learning environment. Mistreatment is any conduct that is contrary to the principles that support a respectful environment and includes making demeaning, offensive, belittling and disrespectful comments, using abusive language, engaging in bullying, harassment and discrimination.
Mistreatment negatively affects individuals, disrupts the learning environment and impedes learning. Learning environment refers to the social interactions, organizational culture and structures, and physical and virtual spaces that surround and shape the learners’ experiences, perceptions and learning.
Learners must be supported by their peers, the Faculty and Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences leadership, to challenge and change unacceptable behaviours that disrupt the learning experience. We are each accountable for the learning environment and must adopt the best and most responsible ways to advocate for the needs and interests of learners.
Are you still unsure? You have the following options:
- Contact someone directly to have an initial confidential discussion.
- Report online and you will be contacted within 72 hours.
Categories of Mistreatment
General Mistreatment
|
Experience |
Unacceptable Conduct |
Acceptable Conduct |
|---|---|---|
|
Publicly humiliated |
A student is told, in rounds, that he/she is stupid or lazy when he/she doesn’t know the answer to a question. |
A student who doesn’t know the answer to a question during rounds is advised by the Clinical Supervisor to look it up. |
|
Threatened with physical harm |
A Clinical Supervisor pounds his/her hand on the desk and says loudly, “If you do that again I will smack you.” |
In a clinical setting a Clinical Supervisor shouts at you to get out of the way because there is an emergency. |
|
Physically harmed |
A Clinical Supervisor throws materials at you, saying, “Read it again.” |
Student is inadvertently burned during cautery in surgery. The surgeon apologizes. |
|
Required to perform personal services |
A student is asked to pick up Clinical Supervisor’s dry cleaning. |
A student is asked to get coffee for themselves and for the team prior to rounds. The team gives the student money. |
Sexual Mistreatment
|
Experience |
Unacceptable Conduct |
Acceptable Conduct |
|---|---|---|
|
Subjected to unwanted physical touching or sexual advances |
A Clinical Supervisor puts a hand on your shoulder, saying, “I would like to teach you something… later.” |
After an upsetting incident the Clinical Supervisor puts their hand on your shoulder, asking, “How are you doing?” |
|
Asked to exchange sexual favours for grades or other rewards |
A Clinical Supervisor tells you, “I’m sure your evaluation will improve if we talk about it over dinner...” |
A Clinical Supervisor says, “Let’s meet after rounds to talk about your evaluation. I will help you with organizing your case presentations.” |
|
Denied opportunities for training or rewards based on gender |
Nurse says to patient, “we only have a male medical student today. You probably don’t want to be seen by a guy?" |
A Nurse says to a student, “I’ll ask the patient if she is okay being examined by a male.” |
|
Subjected to offensive sexist remarks/names |
Clinical Supervisor says, “Hi Gorgeous” and to patient, “Aren’t we fortunate to have the lovely Margaret with us today? Hard to believe she’s a medical student!” |
Clinical Supervisor says to patient, “This is Margaret. She’s the fourth-year medical student on our team today." |
|
Received lower evaluation/grades based on gender |
Clinical Supervisor says, "I don’t expect you to get your hands dirty in the OR. You should really think about psych or family medicine – you girls are so good at those soft skills." |
Clinical Supervisor says to all students, “All students will do well in this rotation if you are prepared to put in the work." |
Racial/Ethnic Mistreatment
|
Experience |
Unacceptable Conduct |
Acceptable Conduct |
|---|---|---|
|
Denied opportunities for training or rewards based on race or ethnicity |
Clinical Supervisor says to student from ethnic minority when they meet for the first time, “I really don’t think that you will find this subspecialty is for you. You won’t find many of your people seeking this sort of treatment.” |
Clinical Supervisor supports all students in their career plans. |
|
Subjected to racially or ethnically offensive remarks/names |
A Program Director says, “You people make great pathologists – you guys are always talking.” |
No comments are made about race or ethnicity. |
|
Received lower evaluations or grades solely because of race or ethnicity rather than performance |
A Clinical Supervisor comments on an evaluation and says in their experience, “people like you should specialize so you can treat your community better.” |
No statements are made about race or ethnicity. |
|
Subjected to offensive remarks about religion |
A Clinical Supervisor says to a student observing Ramadan, “you better let go of that if you want to survive residency in this specialty.” |
A Clinical Supervisor says to a student observing Ramadan, “you know, I’m not too clear on the purpose of Ramadan. Would you mind explaining this to me as we walk to rounds?” |
Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity Mistreatment
|
Experience |
Unacceptable Conduct |
Acceptable Conduct |
|---|---|---|
|
Denied opportunities for training or rewards based on gender identity |
A Clinical Supervisor says, “I don’t think you will like Ortho. It’s a pretty tough specialty – too much heavy lifting for girls.” |
No general or specific comments about gender identity. |
|
Subjected to offensive remarks/names related to sexual orientation |
A Faculty member says, “You seem like a really nice person – strange that such a pretty girl would like girls instead of guys.” |
No general or specific comments about sexual orientation. |
|
Received lower evaluations or grades solely because of sexual orientation rather than performance |
A Clinical Supervisor says, “My impression is that people like you are super sensitive and not really cut out for this specialty.” |
No general or specific comments about sexual orientation. |
|
Subjected to discriminatory remarks regarding gender identity |
A staff person says, “All these new gender neutral washrooms! Why can’t you people use the one they’re supposed to? People have been doing it all their lives up until now.” |
No general or specific comments on gender identity. |
Patient Mistreatment
The mistreatment of a patient negatively affects the learning environment and is particularly difficult for learners to address on their own. It is important for you to report incidents of patient mistreatment to your clinical supervisor at the time they occur. Your clinical supervisor can intervene to support you and take appropriate steps to ensure that such mistreatment does not impede your learning experience. Your clinical supervisor can also assist you to process the interaction and develop strategies to address such behaviour in the future.
Peer-to-Peer Mistreatment
Peer-to-Peer mistreatment is disrespectful or abusive conduct by someone at the same level (i.e. another undergraduate student, another resident, or another graduate student) that should be addressed and reported as you would any mistreatment. Mistreatment between peers is as damaging to learners and the learning environment as mistreatment of learners by faculty or staff.