2. Stand up for psychosocial rights
Empowering you to speak up safely
SafeDr is more than a website - it's a movement for safer, fairer, and more accountable healthcare workplaces.
1. The right to a healthy, fair workplace
2. The right to physical and psychological safety
3. The right to speak up safely without sustaining career damage
4. The right to seek help without discrimination or mandatory reporting
SafeDr is built as a practical, accessible tool to help the medical profession upskill on WHS rights, report risks safely, and reduce physical and mental harm. It also supports collective advocacy by medical leaders and other senior doctors to hold employers, health services, and regulators accountable for unsafe work environments.
1.The right to a healthy, fair workplace
Like other health workers, doctors have a legal right to healthy, fair working conditions—but too often our workplaces expect doctors to accept excessive workloads, unsafe rosters, hostile workplaces and unlawful behaviours like bullying, discrimination, racism, sexual harassment and verbal and physical violence in silence. Caring for others shouldn’t cost your safety.
The health system is inherently a hazardous environment, which is why special attention must be given to protecting the physical and psychological safety of all health workers, including doctors - while providing the highest standard of patient care.
Full-time, part-time, casual employees, contractors and visiting consultants share the following workplace rights protected by law:
A. Training and Supervision: You have the right to proper ongoing training and supervision, to protect your physical and mental health.
B. Job Scope: Your role should be clearly defined, and you should not be asked to perform tasks outside your qualifications, level of training or capacity.
C. Healthy, safe workplaces that prevent and manage all physical and psychosocial hazards: Employers have an obligation to intervene if job demands are excessive or working conditions are hostile, risky or unsafe.
It is clearly critical to balance the needs of patients with these WHS requirements. While doctors usually try to accommodate patient needs and work demands that intrude on breaks and leave entitlements, chronic health underfunding and staffing shortages have created unsafe conditions in many medical workplaces.
For too long, our chronically under-resourced health system has relied on the altruism of clinicians to compromise their own personal safety while providing patient care. This has never been acceptable, and it is no longer tolerable.
2.The right to physical and psychological safety
Our largely government funded health system must comply with government legislated work health and safety standards.
A united medical profession has more influence than currently realised to effect this change.
Additional government and other resourcing is required to support the viability and sustainability of health care including investment in the medical workforce, more training positions, cover for leave entitlements, investment in confidential incident reporting mechanisms, and strong WHS systems that protect all health workers from physical and psychological hazards.
To transform medical workplaces, strong leadership and advocacy of our medical organisations is required. Together, the Australian Medical Association (AMA), Australian Medical Council (AMC), Medical Board, Medical Council of New South Wales, specialist colleges, Council of Presidents of Medical Colleges and professional indemnity providers can:
A. Empower doctors with clear, actionable knowledge of their WHS rights and obligations. Safety is a legal right—not a bonus. It must be upheld by employers, governments, and patients.
B. Educate communities and employers on the legal and ethical standards required of medical workplaces.
C. Promote accountability by employers including directors and officers of hospitals and practice owners - for addressing common psychosocial hazards as well as physical hazards.
D. Raise awareness to the healthcare system as a model for WHS law compliance and cultural safety. A system that genuinely values its workers should not only comply with WHS laws but exceed them. Healthcare should be the gold standard for safe, ethical employment practices—not the exception.
E. Offer guidance on seeking help, safely speaking up and reporting WHS incidents without endangering a medical career. Every doctor must know how to report psychological and physical risks and incidents safely, access whistle blower protections, and understand when an incident is a matter for regulators and the police —not just an HR issue.
F. Understand industrial manslaughter laws have expanded beyond deaths due to physical injuries such as accidents, assaults, pregnancy loss, to include deaths linked to psychological injury — including suicide.
Medical leaders now have a role in preventing industrial manslaughter in medicine by ensuring medical employers resource systems, policies and procedures to reduce work related mental injury due to unlawful bullying, harassment, racism, discrimination, verbal violence or stalking, particularly if this results in suicidality.
3.The right to speak up safely without sustaining career damage
Much has been said about the barriers deterring speaking up and reporting incidents or complaints about working conditions in medicine, including fears about sustaining career damage. These justified fears sometimes arise when inadequate resourcing of the health system and skeleton staffing levels pit doctors against each other and other health workers. In these situations, it is important to recognise the root causes of conflict and incivility are systems issues not personal issues.
Under ground breaking new WHS laws, the medical profession has a responsibility to prevent and intervene early when medical workplace abuse is perpetrated by doctors to others in the health care workplaces, whatever the reason. Doctors in training are particularly vulnerable to being harmed by the toxic behaviours of supervisors.
Given the new penalties under recent changes to WHS laws, it is valid to ask: Why would any doctor perpetrate workplace abuse and create hostile workplace cultures if this is unlawful and potentially threatens registration status?
Like our patients, doctors may lose insight into their risky behaviours for many reasons – such as severe psychiatric illness (including moderate to severe personality disorder); substance abuse; or cognitive decline – all of which require proactive support and effective clinical management. This is not pathologising misconduct, but rather, emphasising the need for compassion and effective early intervention to prevent workplace and patient harm.
Here are some possible steps to consider when speaking up about medical workplace abuse safely:
A. Protect your mental health: seek confidential, early support from a trusted GP or mental health professional. It can be very difficult to navigate the speak up process alone without mental health support, particularly if the process is prolonged. For more information, refer to topic 5 on protecting mental safety.
B. Document evidence discreetly: keep secure, factual records of incidents, witnesses, and impacts because a pattern of repetitive medical workplace abuse may emerge over time.
C. Maintain professionalism in all communications: assume every conversation, email or post will be scrutinised if you make a complaint in the future.
Find allies among your peers and senior colleagues: collective support deters perpetrators and protects you from abuse.
D. Re-read the rules: review your employer’s WHS policies and the Medical Board’s Code of Conduct. Definitions of bullying, sex and race discrimination, sexual harassment, verbal violence are often poorly understood, underreported and unaddressed. Improve your WHS literacy and understand what constitutes overt and indirect unlawful behaviours in topic 6 on the main menu.
E. Understand your protections: Contemporary WHS rights are your career armour. WHS, whistle blower law literacy can provide you with the confidence to manage toxic behavours and protect yourself.
F. Seek early expert advice: contact your MDO for independent guidance.
G. Act collectively: escalate the issues to management as a like-minded group of allies through internal complaint or incident reporting pathways. Group complaints carry more weight and reduce retaliation risk.
H. Obtain legal advice if required but be aware this can be financially costly. First seek information freely available through the Human Rights Commission or State Anti-Discrimination Board, the Fair Work Commission, or your state WHS regulator. For more information about seeking help, refer to topic 9.
I. Expect counter denial and pushback from perpetrators Stay calm, stick to the facts, and refuse to be scapegoated particularly in prolonged investigations to establish the facts.
J. Hold workplace leadership accountable: with your group of allies request formal WHS interventions and advocate for appropriate individual interventions and system changes when workplace risks and hazards are evident. Psychosocial hazards such as discrimination and reprisals against whistle blowers are now unlawful, with employer penalties extending to fines, reputational damage, and even imprisonment. If employers are not responding effectively, they can be reminded of their duties and the penalties for non-compliance. For more information, refer to topic 3.
4.The right to seek psychological treatment without discrimination or mandatory reporting
Doctors have a high tolerance to stress and managing excessive workloads, but we also have high rates of unreported work-related mental injury. Worryingly, many doctors do not seek professional help because of the stigmatisation of mental illness in medicine or fears about being reported to the Medical Board erroneously.
Much has been said about the epidemic of intractable “burnout” in medicine. More likely this is undiagnosed and untreated work related mental injury such as anxiety, major depression or post-traumatic stress disorder directly due to prolonged exposure to poor working conditions and repetitive medical workplace abuses such as hostile workplaces, bullying, discrimination, racism, sexual harassment and verbal and physical violence.
With early access to evidence based mental health treatments, a full relapse free recovery is most likely.
It is important for every doctor to understand the criteria for mandatory reporting. Although there are hundreds of mandatory notifications each year, the majority do not result in regulatory action or impact registration. This suggests employers may be over-using mandatory reporting protections inappropriately in some cases.
Be aware of mandatory reporting thresholds: seek advice from your MDO and your group of allies before considering Ahpra notifications of colleagues who are at risk of harming patients or displaying lack of insight into unlawful behaviours.
To ensure inappropriate mandatory reporting does not occur, it is essential for every doctor to build a trusted relationship with a local independent GP. An experienced GP will provide evidence based mental health treatment if required. There is no requirement for a mandatory notification to the Medical Board if a doctor is actively engaged in treatment or takes time off work if needed with a confidential medical certificate to protect privacy. For more information, refer to topic 10 to access an article called 'Think you know when to make a mandatory notification? Read this'.
Where to get help
Your trusted GP or psychologist.
Your employer or college may have a wellness program or a confidential employee assistance program (EAP).
Doctors’ Health Alliance:
Call the Doctors’ Health Line 24/7: 1800 006 888 to be directed to your local doctors’ health service. Doctors’ Health Services are free and available across Australia for doctors and medical students.
OR
NSW and ACT: 02 9437 6552
NT and SA: 08 8366 0250
Queensland: 07 3833 4352
Tasmania and ACT: 1300374 377
Victoria: 1300 330 543
WA: 08 9321 3098
New Zealand: 0800 471 2654
OR be connected to a counsellor through Drs4Drs: 1300 374 377
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Hand in Hand Peer Support Program https://www.handnhand.org.au/
While self-diagnosis and self-management of mental injury is strongly discouraged, topic 7 on the main menu is a summary of the features of common mental illnesses to help increase mental health literacy in non-psychiatrists. Topic 9 on seeking help, lists a myriad of helpful contacts to encourage prevention of mental injury and early access to treatment of mental illness with evidence-based management.
For more information on the recent changes to WHS Laws underpinning these WHS rights, refer to topic 3 on the main menu.