The reality is that you cannot stop patients, members of the public and even other staff from trying to attack you, so a responsible employer sets up systems to minimise the risk and equips staff to protect themselves and deescalate threatening behaviour. Students need the same protection.
In the 1970's, as students of a predominantly female health care profession, "protect yourself" training was part of our preparation for student placements in the NHS, eg. try to never let a patient or member of the public get between you and the door; if there is a Panic Button on the underside of the desk, make sure you can reach it easily and discreetly.
From the late 1980's, there was greater awareness of the need to protect staff and enable them to protect themselves, due to the work of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust: www.suzylamplugh.org/
Working for NHS Community Services (mostly female staff), the local police provided annual "Self Defence" classes (can't remember if that what was they were actually called). They covered everything from being aware of your surroundings, parking in "safer" places, deescalation techniques to basic physical self-defence and everyone was issued with a free Rape Alarm.
Managers also set up "Lone Working" systems to minimise risk.
For example, every morning the manager of one of the community departments (which were scattered across the city) would contact the police to find out if there was any intelligence about "danger spots" where staff should not go at all or should only go to in pairs. They would then ask if their staff had any information to add and next ring around all the other Depts to let them know the score. When ringing around they would also ask if the staff of each Dept had any information to add. To give time for this ring-around to be completed at least once plus time for a second ring-around if there were any crucial updates, staff would not plan to leave for home visits until IIRC 9:30am at the earliest.
If anyone who lived alone, or had requested to be treated as such due to Domestic Abuse, was an hour late turning up for work without notice they would be phoned at home to check they were OK.
At the end of the day, if anyone was scheduled to go home straight from their last visit without returning to base, they had to phone their base or the home number of a designated member of staff to report that they had got home safely. If someone had not returned to base an hour after they were due to, then the manager would phone the last premises they were due to visit to check if they were OK and if there was no reply they would be phoned at home.
If there was any doubt that the member of staff was safe then the police would be called and asked to visit the Home Visit address and/or the staff member's home as appropriate.
In the 1990's, if not before, staff working for a local Learning Disability and Mental Health NHS Trust in hospitals and the community received more extensive self defence training and restraint techniques.
None of this guarantees that you won't be physically or sexually harassed, assaulted or murdered by a patient, member of the public or other member of staff, or land upside down in a ditch due to your car spinning off an icy road in the middle of nowhere. The best that can be done is to minimise risk and for employers to exercise a duty of care to protect you and help you to protect yourself.
It is not just nurses and other NHS staff who are at risk. I would hope that all Vocational Courses would care enough about their students to provide self defence and "protect yourself" classes.