All employees and students at Erasmus MC have a duty to contribute to a pleasant, safe and healthy working and learning environment. Everyone is therefore responsible for good manners. Nevertheless, students may come into contact with behavior of others that they consider undesirable. Undesirable behavior is a broad concept that includes aggression, violence, bullying, sexual and other intimidation, harassment and discrimination.
What is sexual harassment?
Sexual harassment of residents or TM students occurs when the resident or TM student, directly or indirectly, in the course of their work (or education) comes into contact with expressions of a sexual nature in word, gesture, image, behavior or otherwise, and experiences this as unwelcome. Sexual harassment is defined as "any form of verbal, nonverbal or physical conduct with sexual connotation that has the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, in particular when a threatening, hostile, offensive, humiliating or offensive situation is created" (Arbo). Other descriptions of sexual harassment can be found on the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment's websiteOpent externally.
The directions in the drop-down menu below are currently being revised. These instructions still refer to the current roadmap.
If a coassistant/Technical Medicine trainee is confronted with sexual harassment, they can address the coschap supervisor of the coschap. In addition, the student/trainee is advised to contact one of the confidential counsellors..
If a student is doing a medical internship at an affiliated institution or hospital and wishes to make a report, the student is advised to contact the confidential counsellors at the affiliated institution or hospital where he/she is doing the internship.
At Erasmus MC there are confidential counsellors whom students can contact if they are on a medical internship at Erasmus MC. In addition, one of the confidential counsellors at Erasmus University Rotterdam EUR can be contacted.
A student can not only tell his/her story to a confidential advisor, but he/she can also advise on possible steps to be taken. The advisor listens to the student and helps him/her to deal with the undesirable behaviour. The conversation is confidential and no action will be taken unless the student indicates that they wish to do so. In most cases, this is a report; however, some reports may lead to the filing of a complaint. If there are five reports about the same person, a confidential advisor at Erasmus MC may ask the student if he or she still wants to file a complaint.
When a student reports sexual harassment, this will be treated confidentially. It is important to always report undesired experiences of sexual harassment to one of the Erasmus MC, EUR, or affiliated institutions/hospitals' confidential advisors. They also have a signaling function, which means that they indicate annually where possible bottlenecks in the organization exist, whereby all parties involved remain anonymous. In addition, a report may have helped other coassistants/TM trainees.