An audit of the teachers’ views on student disrespect in a medical school

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Student disrespect in higher education is a topic of increasing focus in recent times. This internal audit on faculty perception of student disrespect was conducted an among the staff from the faculty of Medicine in northern Malaysia. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional audit was done among the 95 staff of a private university using the online Google-form as voluntary and anonymous in nature. The descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were done by SPSS software. Results: The total number of respondents were 72 (76%). Of the eight responders (11%) who perceived student disrespect, seven of them perceived it among the students in clinical years. There was no significant association between the gender of the respondent and the perception on student disrespect. The themes of student disrespect were ‘not following rules; not being punctual, lack of social grace or etiquette and absenteeism without prior notice’. Conclusion: Several studies have documented that incivility and disrespectful behaviour are often displayed in the clinical environment, which might adversely affect patient safety and promote medical students’ disrespect. For the medical students to learn proper behaviour by role-modelling, the medical educators and professionals must eschew rudeness and incivility in the workplace.