Personal health and safety includes:

• Risk of violence or harm from patients or staff;
• access to secure lockers and facilities including call rooms;
• safe travel  between call facilities and service location, and to transportation between workplace and home
• working in isolated or remote situations and
• safeguarding of personal information.

Before you start your rotation:

• Have you been oriented to or apprised of the relevant health and safety policies and procedures?
• Do you know how to assess your safety risks?

During your rotation:

Make use of all necessary safeguards and precautions including backup from supervisors if safety risks are present,  safeguarding your personal information from patients families and staff

• you cannot be expected  to see a patient in hospital, clinic or at home, without the presence of a supervisor or security personnel if you assess a significant risk to your personal  safety
• use call blocking features if you MUST use a personal mobile phone
• consider not driving a motor vehicle when fatigued

If you feel your personal safety or security is threatened, remove yourself from the situation in a professional manner and seek urgent assistance from your immediate supervisor or from the institution’s security services. Promptly report any health and safety concerns to your supervising staff.

• You cannot be negatively impacted for refusing to engage in clinical or educational experiences if you truly feel at risk in doing so though at times, a residual risk will remain after all known precautions are taken and your professional responsibility to patients may require engaging in care despite these risks.

Follow-up for safety risks:

• Any breach of safety will  require that you  comply with institutional policy which may involve an incident report form, and that you report to your program office
• If you feel your safety concerns were not resolved in an acceptable manner, there are a number of options you can pursue. These are outlined in the PGME Health and Safety Guidelines

References:

• PGME Health and Safety Guidelines
• The safety policy of your specific training program. This is an accreditation standard and all programs have one or make reference to one.
• The Occupational Health and Safety policies and procedures of the site where you are training
• How to contact your training site’s Occupational Health Office
• The PARO contract