Published 29 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2874
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2874

Analysis

Ethical Debate

Students whose behaviour causes concern: Case history

What should you do when you see a fellow student behaving inappropriately? After a group of students wrote to the BMJ about their experience during an elective, we sought the opinions of an ethicist (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2882), a dean (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2884), a GMC representative (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2876), and a lecturer from an African university (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2875)

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Medical students are in a position of privilege and trust in their everyday interactions with patients. The General Medical Council (GMC) guidance states that students must protect patients from harm posed by another colleague’s poor behaviour, performance, or health and raise any concerns with an appropriate person.¹ However, there is no obvious channel for raising concerns, particularly when problems are encountered away from your university. We describe our experiences, which highlight the issues encountered when students abuse their position.

We spent an elective placement in a busy hospital in a developing country. Our supervisor was a western doctor who went on annual leave for the last three weeks of our placement. One day before the supervisor’s departure a new student arrived from the United Kingdom. He was shown around and had the opportunity to observe in theatre before our supervisor left. We later discussed with him our experiences since arrival . . . [Full text of this article]

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