Taking care of your own wellbeing

  1. Summary
  2. Creating fair, respectful, and compassionate workplaces
  3. Helping to tackle discrimination
  4. Treating patients fairly
  5. Promoting patient centred care
  1. Supporting continuity of care and safe delegation
  2. Consent and confidentiality
  3. Taking care of your own wellbeing
  4. Communicating as a medical student
  5. Engaging with assessments policies and procedures

Studying for a medical degree can be challenging, and it’s important that you look after yourself. Just as we ask doctors to consider their wellbeing when caring for patients, we also ask you to reflect on your own health and how it might impact your studies.

  • Registered doctors should try to take care of their own health and wellbeing, recognising if they may not be fit for work. They should seek independent professional advice about their fitness for work, rather than relying on their own assessment. They must ask for help from a suitable colleague and follow their advice about any changes to their practice the colleague considers necessary and must not rely on their own assessment of the risk to patients. (paragraph 81)
  • You should think about the impact your health might have on your ability to study or sit an assessment. Just as doctors in practice need to be able to determine whether they are well enough to care for their patients, so as a medical student you would be expected to determine if you are well enough to fully engage with the course including assessments, raise this with your medical school and seek independent medical advice if appropriate. Your medical school will support you to develop this awareness. (paragraph 83)

We've also added new principles to Achieving good medical practice on what you should do in an emergency situation, or if you feel a patient poses a risk to your safety.

  • As a medical student, before helping in an emergency you should take account of your own safety. You should consider whether you are competent to act and feel able to offer assistance, or decide whether it is better to try to access help for a person in distress. (paragraph 40)
  • If, as a medical student, you feel that a patient poses a risk to your health and safety, you should speak to your supervisor before becoming involved in the patient’s care. (paragraph 42)
Previous Consent and confidentiality Next Communicating as a medical student