The internet loves romanticizing the medical journey. Our feeds are full of smiling photos holding newly bought stethoscopes, coffee cups perfectly aligned next to thick Semiology textbooks, and inspiring texts about the glory of learning to save lives.
Studying medicine has always been described to us as a path of discipline, dedication, and resilience. We stay awake all night, face exams that seem impossible, and handle constant pressure to possess the knowledge necessary to care for human life.
What they almost never tell us, and what Instagram does not show, is that sometimes, in addition to all that, we also need courage to face violence within the academic environment itself. There is a harsh reality that many of us face in silence.
Yes. I was physically and psychologically assaulted inside my own medical school.
Shattering the safe harbor
While still in the first semester of medical school, I experienced an event that made me deeply reflect on this problem. During a lecture, a simple situation regarding the organization of a class list escalated into an unexpected conflict. A couple of students from the same class began acting with an informal authority that was not theirs to take. When questioning this stance and clarifying that the professor was in charge of organization, the situation quickly transformed into a verbal confrontation.
What should have only been a divergence of opinion escalated into aggression, tension, and physical acts that completely crossed the boundaries of a healthy academic environment. The shock of an assault in the academic environment comes not just from the act itself, but from the shattering of the sense of safety. Hospitals and medical schools should be our safe harbors; they are places where we are meant to care for others’ pain. Finding violence in the exact place you seek your future is a devastating breach of trust.
How do you focus on applying clinical reasoning to a patient when your own body is in a state of alert? How do you review pages of Harrison’s in the early morning when your mind insists on replaying a trauma?
The “silence syndrome” and the normalization of abuse
Many people imagine that violence in universities is limited to abusive hazing or extreme cases that make the news. However, the reality can be much more subtle, frequent, and silent:
- Intimidation and threats between peers
- Public humiliation
- Verbal abuse
- Dominating behaviors within study groups
In a highly competitive course like medicine, where pressure is the norm, these dynamics often arise when students try to assume positions of informal power over the class. In medicine, we are historically trained to “suck it up” (swallow our tears). Medical culture often confuses exhaustion and abuse with a “rite of passage.”
The problem is that when these attitudes are not questioned, they end up being normalized. Medical student mental health is bleeding, and we often use the white coat to hide the stains.
The impact and the importance of speaking up
The consequences are real: anxiety, difficulty concentrating, drops in academic performance, and social isolation. Medical students already face high levels of stress by nature. When the environment becomes hostile, the emotional impact is overwhelming.
Facing this situation, I made the decision to formally register the incident with the medical school coordination and request a change of class. It was not an impulsive decision, but rather a mature and necessary choice to preserve my safety, my mental health, and my ability to continue focusing on my studies.
Changing environments does not mean running away from the problem. Often, it means prioritizing your own integrity and moving forward with dignity.
Universities must be spaces of humanity
Educational institutions play a fundamental role in ensuring the academic environment is safe, respectful, and ethical. Medical training does not just involve scientific knowledge. Above all, it involves human values: empathy, respect, and collective responsibility. A future doctor who does not learn to respect their peers and coexist in a healthy environment will hardly learn to truly respect and care for their patients.
Difficult situations like this should teach us that academic culture needs to evolve. We need to talk more about mental health, mutual respect, and our responsibility to build healthy learning environments.
The Educar Med project was not born just to organize summaries; it was born as a cry for survival, mental structure, and ethics. I realized I cannot control the external environment or the actions of others. But I can control the construction of my clinical mind and the support network I create around myself. The white coat is not a magic shield against the malice of the world, but our resilience, our voice, and our commitment to a more humane medicine, are.
If you are going through or have gone through situations of abuse, harassment, or insecurity in your academic journey: you are not alone. Your pain is valid. Your physical and mental safety and integrity are worth infinitely more than any degree. Speak out, seek help, and remember that true healing begins within ourselves.
About @EducarMed
Educar Med isn’t just about passing tests; it’s about rejecting clinical mediocrity. We are a community dedicated to training the new generation of physicians who think, examine with precision, and transform lives.
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