Mistreatment for mistreatment in medicine? Exploring the link between (future) doctors’ mistreatment during their training and patients’ mistreatment during their medical care

This research, born from the dual observation of mistreatment in the medical field - both by physicians during their training and by patients during their healthcare - investigates the psychosocial processes that could link these two forms of mistreatment. Previous research on medical mistreatment, and in particular their causes and consequences, highlighted the likely role of an unofficial medical culture in the production of both forms of abuse. This study tested a theoretical model that hypothesizes a positive effect of the mistreatment experienced by doctors during their training on the mistreatment they inflict on their patients, mediated by their incorporation of non-official cultural norms. 224 young doctors from various specialties completed therefore an online questionnaire. Statistical analyses failed to validate the hypothesis of a direct effect of suffered maltreatment on maltreatment inflicted on patients. Understanding the link between these two forms of mistreatment and the unofficial medical culture requires the development of other theoretical models through future research. In a second article (part 2), based on exploratory statistical analyses of the same data, we propose an alternative model of the link in which unofficial medical culture is a common causal factor for both forms of medical mistreatment. Rev Med Brux 2026 ; 47: 2-13 Doi : 10.30637/2026.24-095A