Credit: University of Sydney

The results of the Medical Board of Australia’s latest Medical Training Survey (MTS) have revealed gender-based differences in students’ experience of medical training. The MTS data show discrepancies in doctors’ access to research and the quality of orientation and payment for overtime in relation to their gender. Non-binary trainees also reported issues with feeling safe at work.

This latest report adds a fifth year of MTS data, which are published on the Medical Training Survey website. More than 23,000 trainee doctors participated, 60 of whom trained with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO).

Nationally, students who identified as non-binary reported the highest rates of experiencing bullying, harassment, discrimination and/or racism, while female trainees consistently reported higher rates of experiencing bullying, harassment, and discrimination than male trainees. Non-binary trainees reported witnessing bullying, harassment, discrimination and racism at nearly double the rate reported by both male and female trainees. The sources of these behaviours varied, with male and female trainees identifying senior medical staff as the primary source, while non-binary trainees mostly attributed them to medical colleagues (registrars and other students) and other health practitioners.

In RANZCO’s tranche of the results, 48% of 2023’s trainee ophthalmologists said they had experienced or witnessed bullying, harassment or discrimination, compared to 54% of respondents in 2022 and 89% in 2019.

Dr Anne Tonkin, chair of the Medical Board of Australia, said the established link between poor culture and increased risk to both patient safety and doctors’ wellbeing requires urgent attention, particularly discrimination. “It is totally unacceptable that 54% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees experienced and/or witnessed bullying, harassment, discrimination and racism. It is inexcusable that 35% of all trainees did.”