Despite attempts by medical schools and professional organizations to address the problem in recent decades, the issue of bullying remains a widespread and serious problem in medical training and the training of medical scientists. Because of the hierarchical structure found in many medical schools and institutions of higher education training medical scientists at the doctoral level, many students experience mistreatment from superiors, primarily verbal abuse. This can have short and long term deleterious mental and physical consequences and adversely affect teaching and learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with medical doctors and medical scientists. All described the emotional/verbal abuse that they had experienced or witnessed during their training. A variety of triggers of bullying were identified, and the negative effects of bullying on targets described. Participants also recommended several policy changes to reduce bullying. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]