Medical trainees are experiencing unacceptable behaviour from patients and their families at the same rate as from senior medical staff, survey results show.
Dr Susan O’Dwyer
The 2025 survey of more than 18,000 trainees found 46% cited both groups as sources of bullying, discrimination, harassment and racism.
The findings, released by the Medical Board of Australia and Ahpra, revealed a significant shift from 2020, when 56% of trainees nominated senior medical staff as the source compared with 38% for patients and families.
“It seems the deficits in the culture of medicine reported by trainees are firmly anchored to wider community attitudes and behaviours,” said Medical Board of Australia Chair Dr Susan O’Dwyer.
The longitudinal survey, now in its seventh year, provided insights into both the positives and negatives of medical training in Australia.
Trainees rated training quality highly, with 89% rating clinical supervision and 86% rating teaching and education sessions as good or excellent. Some 83% recommended their training position and workplace as a place to train.
However, the overall rate of unacceptable behaviour remained unchanged at around 30%, with some groups experiencing substantially higher rates.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees reported abuse rates nearly twice the average, at 56%, with 38% experiencing or witnessing racism specifically.
“Work across the profession and the health sector to improve cultural safety and address racism remains urgent and essential,” Dr O’Dwyer said.
The survey revealed variations between trainee groups, with interns and specialist non-GP trainees reporting unacceptable behaviours nearly 20 percentage points more often than international medical graduates and GP trainees.
One particularly concerning finding was that one in 10 trainees overall—and one in six Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees—indicated they were considering a career outside medicine within the next 12 months.
There was a slight decrease in trainees reporting heavy or very heavy workloads.
The MTS is the only annual, national, profession-wide survey of all doctors in training in Australia and was created for trainees, with trainees, according to Ahpra.
Stringent privacy controls made it safe and confidential for trainees to participate. In 2025, more international medical graduates than ever before shared their perspectives.
Trainees were using the results to shape their choice of training sites and specialties, whilst health sector stakeholders were using the data to identify problem areas, address issues and share strengths.
The 2025 results are published as static reports on the MedicalTrainingSurvey.gov.au website, with current results to be accessible in searchable form in early 2026 through the MTS online data dashboard.