Twelve tips to foster healthcare student recognition and reporting of unprofessional behaviour or concerns

Abstract

Medical trainees and students are required to report concerns where they identify concerning practice or behaviours. While leadership attributes and skills are increasingly expected curricular outcomes, students still struggle to report concerns due to a variety of factors. Changing societal awareness and expectations continue to shine light on poor professionalism and unethical behaviours whose reach extends to medical training and education and that need to be systematically reported and addressed. To prepare graduates for these challenges in professional practice and for exercising skills of reporting concerns, education and training environments must ensure that speaking up is ingrained in the organisational ethos. Supported by evidence from the literature and our experience of revising and enhancing approaches, this paper outlines tips for developing and embedding an infrastructure that facilitates robust concerns reporting and management. Further, we consider mechanisms that support students to develop tendencies and skills for reporting concerns.