Getting help
In an emergency, follow the directions of placement provider staff or call 000.
The University provides a number of support services for students. Additionally, each student placement provider should provide you with information on their own services and procedures to handle different scenarios.
Health and wellbeing information
Incidents and hazards
There are a number of incidents that can occur when undertaking a student placement, particularly in a busy work environment.
Major incidents include:
- Natural disasters and emergency situations
- Travel-related incidents, such as car accidents
- Acts of violence or threat of violence to patients, clients, employees or you
- Physical or sexual assault, harassment or bullying of patients, clients, employees or you
- A patient or client fatality or near fatality outside of a hospital environment, or fatality of a colleague
- Major failure in internal process at the host organisation; for example, fraudulent activity
- Major vandalism
If you are involved in, affected by or witness a major incident, you should tell your placement supervisor in the first instance (or other appropriate senior person if your supervisor is implicated in or otherwise connected to the incident).
All incidents and near-misses (hazards) must be reported to the University as soon as possible.
Discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying
The University takes all allegations of discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying very seriously, as do many of our placement providers.
If you witness or experience bullying, harassment or discrimination while on placement, you are encouraged to speak with your placement supervisor or course coordinator immediately.
Alternatively, support and advice is available through the University's Safer Community Program.
Further information and support
Rural placement support
Students on rural placement can contact the Going Rural Health team for assistance or advice.
Insurance
The University provides automatic coverage for personal accident, professional indemnity and public liability insurance for students undertaking university activities, including student placements.
Some students may be able to access additional insurance cover through the relevant professional association (for example, Australian Physiotherapy Association, Australian Dental Association) or a private defence organisation (Avant, MDA National, Medical Indemnity Protection Society, etc).
Legal advice
While the University provides professional indemnity insurance, it does not provide legal advice to students.
If you need legal advice for any reason, it will need to be obtained through the University's indemnity insurer or an independent legal practitioner.
The following organisations provide free advice to students:
Additional resources
- Government resources
- University of Melbourne resources
- Professional associations