Student Help: Reporting Unprofessional Behavior and Mistreatment

UTMB is committed to providing the best educational climate possible. If you experience unprofessional behavior or mistreatment—whether from a resident, faculty member, fellow student or someone else—we want to know about it, so we can rectify the problem for you and for others. This reporting tool is a resource for students seeking to report professionalism concerns to a neutral third party. Confidentiality is respected.  All concern notes submitted through the website will show the return address as www.utmb.edu not the sender's email address.  There is no identifiable information and no response can be sent back to the sender unless that information is included in the Professionalism Concern Note (PCN).  The PCN is forwarded to the Student Ombudsman for follow-up and triage.  It is important to note that an anonymous PCN makes it difficult to follow-up and corroborate incidents.  An anonymous PCN accompanied with enough information can be useful, if nothing else, it can be noted for the record.  This tool is brought to you by the Professionalism Charter Committee, a group of faculty, staff and students working to promote a culture of professionalism at UTMB.

What to do if you see or experience unprofessional behavior

1. Follow the instructions outlined in your course syllabus for reporting such concerns and complaints. If directions for reporting unprofessional behavior are not outlined in your course syllabus, you are encouraged to contact your course coordinator or departmental program advisor.

2. Report the unprofessional behavior incident here.

Examples of unprofessional behavior and mistreatment may include*:

• Verbal abuse, such as public belittlement or humiliation of a student or fellow team member
   
• Being threatened with physical harm or being physically punished
   
• Abuse of power over another person on the health care team. This can include interactions with a faculty physician, nurse or a technician, or mistreatment of a patient
   
• Being required to perform personal services (e.g., shopping, babysitting)
   
• Being subjected to offensive remarks/names because of your race, ethnicity or sexual orientation
   
• Receiving lower evaluations or grades solely because of your gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation rather than your performance
   
• Being denied opportunities for training or rewards solely because of your gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation rather than your performance
   
• Sexual harassment (e.g., unwanted sexual advances, offensive sexist remarks/names directed at you personally)
   
• Discussing confidential information about a patient in an inappropriate setting
   
• Discriminatory treatment of a patient (or another person) due to that person’s economic status, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation
   
• Cheating

Additional student resources are available to help you:

• Ombudsman services are available to help you with academic and non-academic concerns, questions and complaints (e.g., fee payment, housing, financial aid, grades, professors, parking and other university-related issues). An ombudsman is a neutral third party, and confidentiality is ensured. The Student Ombudsman Office is located in Suite 2.110, Lee Hage Jamail Student Center, (409) 747-4820.
   
• Counseling and other wellness assistance is available to students. Visit http://web.utmb.edu/studentwellness/ for more details.
   
• Additional details on student non-academic grievance procedures can be found in the UTMB Handbook of Operating Procedures

Note: Discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual assault are crimes that should be brought to the attention of your school’s Student Affairs Dean and the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity. You are also encouraged to notify Campus Police at ext. 21111. Call 911 in the event of an emergency.

*Many of these examples of unprofessional behavior and mistreatment come from the AAMC medical school graduation questionnaire.