MEDICAL students have suffered "moral distress" during training after witnessing senior doctors breaching patient dignity and safety standards, new research has claimed.
More than half of junior doctors also revealed that they had been forced to carry out a procedure without a patient's valid consent to improve their learning.
Women suffered more distress than men, according to researchers who questioned almost 4,000 medical and healthcare students in Britain and and Northern Ireland over the past year.
Lead author Dr Lynn Monrouxe said the feedback gave an insight into the dilemmas and "tricky situations" faced by students who may be verbally coerced by a consultant into treating a patient.
The findings relating to Northern Ireland student doctors, student nurses and other junior healthcare staff have been forwarded to Queen's University Belfast - but will not be released into the public domain due to the "ethical" issues.
"While we have known about care dilemmas facing students as a result of other government reports into failings, the is the first time we have learned of the moral distress this has caused," Dr Monrouxe said.
"These are tomorrow's doctors but what is positive is that our findings show that these students actually maintain empathy throughout their undergraduate years."
Carried by researchers from Cardiff University and the University of Dundee, the research is part of a 10-year programme into the ethical experiences of medical, nursing, dental, pharmacy and physiotherapy students.
Although a tenth of respondents reported experiencing no professional dilemmas over the previous year, the majority said they had been victims of workplace abuse or witnessed the abuse of other healthcare workers.
Prof Charlotte Rees from the University of Dundee, said: "The findings around workplace abuse concur with previous research suggesting that student abuse and witnessing the abuse of others occurs as soon as students enter the clinical environment.
"The findings have been consistent and illustrate the severe pressure students are frequently put under.
"More positively, the findings have prompted action by some education providers."
The results of the survey have been published online at BMJ Open.