« Back
Reporting Disruptive Behavior
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
- 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.
- 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. Visit http://www.utmb.edu/studentservices/ombudsman.html
for more details.
- Counseling and other wellness assistance is available to
students. Visit http://www.utmb.edu/studenthealth/
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.