Junior Doctor's Death in Indonesia Exposes Medical School Bullying

The death of a junior doctor, 30-year-old Aulia Risma Lestari in Indonesia has shed light upon the prevalent bullying occurring in medical schools. She was part of an anesthesia specialist program at Diponegoro University in Semarang. She was found dead at her residence on August 12th and the police are investigating her death as a suicide. She had reportedly injected herself with a lethal dose of anesthetic. The police suspect that the reason for her suicide could be because of bullying. She had documented the devastating events in her diary.

WhatsApp chats:

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), several WhatsApp conversations between Aulia Risma Lestari and her seniors following her death revealed that the 31-year-old was pressurized by her seniors to pay for their meals, entertainment, and car rentals beyond her living costs.

The Indonesia Health Ministry responded to the incident by suspending the hospital's anesthesiology residency program until the investigation is over. Indonesia's Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin called bullying an "open secret" in the country's medical institutions and claimed to take strict actions against the perpetuators.

The university's rector, Professor Suharnomo refuses to the allegations of bullying as the school already has a zero bullying policy monitored by the Bullying and Sexual Violence Prevention and Management Team since August 2023. He believes that the junior had health issues that affected her academics but he fully cooperated with the police investigation.

According to the country's Health Ministry,

The complaints were based on Physical and verbal abuse, financial coercion, and intimidation.

Another Victim

A 29-year-old medical student Agung Purnama, specialising in oncology surgery during his residency at a Bandung, West Java hospital, voiced that he had also experienced pressure from senior doctors to work long hours. He was threatened to get bad grades if their orders were not obeyed.

"You feel like (you) have no choice but to do as they say ... I spent so much time and money to get to this point (in my studies) so it feels like you don't want to do anything to risk that," he added.

"I think there is a tendency to normalize and see bullying as being natural because of the high amounts of pressure and demands of specialized medical education ... but this shouldn't be normalized or tolerated," founder and chief executive of advocacy group Centre for Indonesia's Strategic Development Initiatives, Diah Satyani Saminarsih, said, reported SCMP. “The more junior you are, the higher the risk is that you will be exposed to bullying,” she added.

“The Health Ministry will always take stern action against the bullies. Their names will also be flagged in the system as perpetrators,” health ministry’s spokesman Mohammad Syahril told the outlet.

(Input from various sources)

(Rehash/Gayatri Prakasan/MSM)