DUTIES FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS

The GMC also sets out duties for medical students. Medical
students have legal restrictions on the clinical work
they can do, but must be aware that they are often doing
things that a qualified doctor might do (such as ‘taking a
history’) and that their activities will affect patients.
Patients may see students as knowledgeable, and may
consider them to have the same responsibilities and
duties as a doctor. Students must be aware that their
behaviour outside the clinical environment, including
in their personal lives, may have an impact on their fitness
to practise (professional boundaries are discussed
later in this chapter).
Therefore:
• students have a duty to make sure that patients know
that they are students and not doctors. For example:
should medical undergraduates introduce themselves
as medical students or as student doctors?
The title ‘Student doctor’ could mislead a patient that
the person seeing them is medically qualified
• students have a duty to behave in a professional way
in the clinical and educational environment, and are
subject to the same ethical duties as doctors, such as
maintaining confidentiality or not performing a procedure
unless competent to do so
• students have a duty to avoid behaving in an antisocial
or criminal manner outside the clinical setting
(e.g. this could include taking recreational drugs,
drunken driving or disorderly behaviour in public).