2. Stand up for psychosocial rights

SafeDr is a movement for safer, fairer and more accountable medical workplaces.

At its core, SafeDr is grounded in four fundamental rights for every doctor:

1. The right to a healthy, fair workplace
2. The right to physical and psychosocial safety
3. The right to speak up safely without career damage
4. The right to seek help without discrimination or inappropriate      mandatory reporting

SafeDr is a practical, accessible tool designed to help doctors strengthen their WHS literacy, report risks safely and reduce physical and psychological harm. It also supports collective advocacy by senior doctors and medical leaders to hold employers, health services and regulators accountable for unsafe work environments.

1. The right to a healthy, fair workplace

Like all health workers, doctors have a legal right to healthy and fair working conditions. Yet too often, doctors are expected to tolerate excessive workloads, unsafe rosters, hostile workplace cultures and unlawful behaviours - bullying, discrimination, racism, sexual harassment, and verbal or physical violence - in silence.

Caring for others should never come at the cost of your own safety.

Healthcare is inherently high-risk. That reality demands greater, not lesser, attention to protecting the physical and psychological safety of doctors - while continuing to deliver high-quality patient care.

All doctors - whether full-time, part-time, casual employees, contractors or visiting consultants - share the following legally protected rights:

A. Training and supervision
You have the right to appropriate, ongoing training and supervision to protect your physical and mental health.

B. Defined scope of practice
Your role must be clearly defined. You should not be asked to perform tasks outside your qualifications, level of training or capacity.

C. Safe workplaces that prevent and manage hazards
Employers have a duty to identify, prevent and respond to all physical and psychosocial hazards, including excessive job demands and hostile or unsafe environments.

Balancing patient needs with WHS obligations is essential. Doctors routinely accommodate clinical demands that intrude on breaks and leave. However, chronic underfunding and staffing shortages are now pushing dedicated clinicians beyond safe limits.

For too long, the health system has relied on doctors’ altruism - expecting clinicians to compromise their own safety to keep the system functioning.
 

This has never been acceptable.
It is no longer tolerable.

2. The right to physical and psychosocial safety

Australia’s largely government-funded health system is legally required to comply with government-legislated WHS standards.

A united medical profession has far more influence than is often recognised to demand and drive this compliance.

Sustainable healthcare requires adequate resourcing, including:

• investment in the medical workforce
• sufficient training positions
• backfill for leave entitlements
• confidential and trusted incident reporting systems
• robust WHS systems that actively protect against physical and     psychosocial hazards

Transforming medical workplaces requires strong, coordinated leadership from our medical institutions. 

Together, our medical organisations including the AMA, Australian Medical Council, Medical Board, Medical Council of NSW, specialist colleges, the Council of Presidents of Medical Colleges and professional indemnity providers can:

A. Empower doctors with clear, actionable WHS knowledge
Safety is a legal right - not a privilege or reward.

B. Educate employers and communities
Medical workplaces must meet defined legal and ethical standards.

C. Enforce accountability
Hospital directors, officers and practice owners must address psychosocial hazards with the same seriousness as physical risks.

D. Set healthcare as the WHS benchmark
Healthcare should be the gold standard for safe, ethical employment - not an exception.

E. Guide safe speaking up
Doctors must know how to report risks, access whistleblower protections, and understand when issues warrant regulatory or police involvement - not just HR processes.

F. Understand expanded industrial manslaughter laws
These laws now extend beyond deaths from physical injury and may now include deaths linked to work-related mental injury, including suicide.

3. The right to speak up safely without career damage

Fear of career harm remains a powerful barrier to speaking up in medicine. These fears are often justified - particularly in under-resourced systems where skeleton staffing pits clinicians against one another.

In such environments, conflict and incivility are system failures, not personal failures.

Under new WHS laws, the medical profession has a responsibility to prevent and intervene early when workplace abuse occurs - regardless of the cause. Doctors in training are particularly vulnerable to harm from toxic supervisory behaviours.

Given the significant penalties now attached to WHS breaches, it is reasonable to ask:
Why would any doctor engage in unlawful workplace abuse that risks regulatory action and registration consequences?

Like patients, doctors may lose insight into harmful behaviours due to factors such as severe mental illness, substance misuse or cognitive decline. This is not about excusing misconduct - it is about early, compassionate intervention to prevent harm to colleagues and patients.

Speaking up safely: practical steps

A. Protect your mental health
Seek early, confidential support from a trusted GP or mental health professional. Prolonged speak-up processes are difficult to navigate alone. (See Topics 5 and 9)

B. Document discreetly
Keep secure, factual records of incidents, witnesses and impacts. Patterns may emerge over time.

C. Communicate professionally
Assume all communications may later be scrutinised. Build alliances with peers and senior colleagues - collective support is protective.

D. Re-read the rules
Review your employer’s WHS policies and the Medical Board’s Code of Conduct. Many unlawful behaviours remain poorly understood and under-reported. Strengthen your WHS literacy (Topic 6).

E. Know your protections
WHS and whistle blower laws are your career armour. Knowledge builds confidence.

F. Seek expert advice early
Contact your MDO for independent guidance early.

G. Act collectively
Group reporting carries more weight and reduces retaliation risk.

H. Access WHS information on regulator websites
Human Rights Commissions, Anti-Discrimination Boards, Fair Work Commission and WHS regulators provide a lot of helpful information. Personal legal advice may also be necessary, but it can be expensive.

I. Expect pushback
Denial and deflection are common. Stay calm, factual and refuse to be scapegoated.

J. Hold leadership accountable
Request formal WHS interventions and system changes. Reprisals and discrimination against whistle blowers are now unlawful, with serious penalties. (See Topic 3.)

4. The right to seek psychological treatment without discrimination 

Doctors are highly skilled at tolerating stress and excessive workloads - we also experience high rates of work-related mental injury, which is largely unreported to workplaces, and instead it is often disclosed in anonymous external surveys.

What is often labelled “burnout” is more accurately undiagnosed, untreated work-related mental injury - including anxiety, major depression and PTSD - resulting from prolonged exposure to unsafe working conditions and repeated workplace abuse.

With early access to evidence-based treatment and workplace intervention, full and sustained recovery is likely.

Many doctors avoid seeking help due to stigma or fear of being incorrectly reported to the Medical Board.

Every doctor should understand the threshold for mandatory reporting to the Medical Board. While hundreds of notifications occur annually, most do not result in regulatory action - suggesting mandatory reporting may sometimes be over-used.

To protect yourself, establish an ongoing relationship with an independent GP.

There is no requirement to make a mandatory notification if a doctor is engaged in treatment or appropriately takes time off work with confidential medical certification if feeling compromised.

For further detail, see the relevant article under Topic 10:
“Think you know when to make a mandatory notification? Read this.”

To summarise:

You have the right to a safe workplace free from physical and psychosocial harm.

You have the right to protection from workplaces abuses such as bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination, racism, violence and threats.

You are entitled to physical and mental health care without discrimination.

You have the right to speak up safely without retaliation from colleagues or employers. 

Employers are legally responsible for preventing harm and may be vicariously liable for the inappropriate conduct of:

• employees
• contractors
• visiting consultants
• patients or visitors

 For more information on support pathways and speaking up safely, see Topic 9.