Using role playing to increase residents' awareness of medical student mistreatment

The teacher-learner relationship is subject to both internal and external influences that may lead to mistreatment and harassment of the student. The student who is mistreated may mistreat students when he or she becomes a teacher. The author describes an experiential program for residents at Brown Medical School from 1999 to 2002 in which residents, through role playing, helped produce teaching videotapes on medical student mistreatment. Fourteen residents had participated in the program to date. They reported that they had benefited from an increased awareness of the effects of student mistreatment and had learned how to handle mistreatment more effectively. They also reported increased sensitivity to others and improved self-awareness, qualities that they planned to incorporate into their professional identities and that should help them avoid mistreatment of students and residents later in their careers. Because preventing mistreatment from being transmitted to the next generation is an important way to increase medical professionalism, the author recommends that role-playing exercises dealing with mistreatment be a part of all residency education.