Sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape have been referred to as surgery’s open secret.
There is an untold story of women being fondled inside their scrubs, of male surgeons wiping their brow on their breasts and men rubbing erections against female staff. Some have been offered career opportunities for sex.
The analysis - by the University of Exeter, the University of Surrey and the Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery - has been shared exclusively with BBC News.
Nearly two-thirds of women surgeons that responded to the researchers said they had been the target of sexual harassment and a third had been sexually assaulted by colleagues in the past five years.
Women say they fear reporting incidents will damage their careers and they lack confidence the NHS will take action.
I heard that among surgeons there are a lot who have a personality disorder like narcissism or they are straight up sociopaths. Because of the prestige and power that comes with the job. Some feel like they are some sort of god because they have so much control over someone’s life when a patient lies on the table.
Not a surprise to me that this shit happens in the hospital.
I think there’s also something to the idea that it takes someone who is a little…“off” for them to be able to cut other people open for their job. You have to be able to dehumanize them to a certain extent.
I worked in a hospital for a few years, and the folks working in the ORs were definitely the most interesting and often most intimidating crowd, and you did NOT fuck with the surgeons, they were the kings and queens of the floor.
The training pretty much filters neurotypicals. Most well-adjusted people won’t sacrifice their entire life for a career and don’t suffer from a savior complex that compels them to save lives. I’m certainly not advocating that surgery is unnecessary or that surgeons are bad people by default, but it takes a fair level of narcissism to put yourself in that position IMO
Even if you had like no morals at all, that type of behavior has to disqualify someone from being a surgeon. They’re sabotaging the work they’re supposed to be doing.
“Dear neurosurgeon man, I know you have like 15 years of college and 20 years of experience and you are the only qualified neurosurgeon in 100 mile radius but remember that one time you rubbed your dick on that intern? Yeah, your going to need to let the next 15 patients die and we are going to need to let you go. I know it downgrades us from a level one trauma center, hundreds of people might die, and we will lose MILLIONS of dollars by letting you go, but it’s the right thing to do” - Said no chief of surgery ever.
They just pay the lawsuits and move on. It’s shitty, and it’s why surgeons are giant dicks. They don’t have to treat conscious patients and they get away with anything because they are nearly irreplaceable.
They’re getting in the way of their own replacements, creating a hostile environment preventing people from working and gaining experience.
Everything you said is true, and it fucking sucks.
Wait, so Scrubs was right about surgeons?
what kind of sad pathetic waste of life do you have to be to GET HORNY WHILE SOMEONE ELSE IS CUTTING SOMEONE UP AND SEXUALLY ASSAULT SAID SKILLED SURGEON
Have you met/partied with medical students who are doing their residencies? I have, and my opinion of doctors has radically changed since then.
Oh dear. Elaborate?
28 year olds acting like 18 year olds.
Even worse, to unleash an untrained surgeon out to the world in exchange for sex.
Maybe they are turned on by how smart and skilled the surgeon is? Lol
men rubbing erections against female staff
Imagine getting aroused while working, doing surgery, surrounded by other people. I would think any one of those three would preclude the possibility.
I would guess it is how they respond to a highly stressful environment. But that would only excuse the arousal, not the sexual assault.
Imagine doing this to someone with both the scalpel and the knowledge of how to use it.
Maybe they’re getting an erection cuz they’re falling asleep of boredom
Full stats by the way:
Among women, 63.3% reported being the target of sexual harassment versus 23.7% of men
29.9% of women had been sexually assaulted versus 6.9% of men
10.9% of women experiencing forced physical contact for career opportunities (a form of sexual assault) versus 0.7% of men
Being raped by a colleague was reported by 0.8% of women versus 0.1% of men
Not sure why it keeps being framed as “versus” like it’s some sort of competition and it doesn’t mean both sexes get sexually harassed and that’s not fucking okay for either.
Source for stats
Surgical tech, here.
Um… What the fuck? NHS, you need to get your shit together.
I’ve only worked in US military/civilian hospitals, so I can’t speak on the NHS, but in the US at least there’s no ‘open secret’ of sexual assault in surgery. At minimum you’ve got a surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurse, and tech in the room, so if any one of them tries to assault one of the others, it’ll be in plain view of two witnesses.
We’ve definitely got a few relics from another era (old perverts who constantly push boundaries), but even they know better than to try to do something physical. X-rated ‘jokes’ directed where they aren’t welcome is another story, but those aren’t some ‘open secret’ that we just tolerate, either: fucker’s getting told off and written up.
Surgeons especially are notorious for having a short temper and shit social skills, and HR won’t raise a fucking eyebrow over Drs creating a hostile work environment in pretty much any way -other- than sexual. But a sexual harassment/assault complaint? I’ve seen two of those put in (both at a private civ hospital, two different surgeons/incidents) and both times HR intervened that day. Wish I could have been a fly on the wall for those conversations, cuz whatever they threatened did the trick - surgeon was absolutely walking on egg shells from there on.
If there’s any open secret it’s “different spanks for different ranks” - if the accused was a nurse or tech, they’d be fired on the spot, where Drs are given much more leeway / second chances, but that difference is much more narrow when it comes to sexual harassment/assault.
The only way I can think they might get away with that shit is if no one’s reporting them, so if you see it, FUCKING SUBMIT A COMPLAINT TO HR.
Who remembers the show scrubs and the few times we saw episodes around the female surgeons in the show. There was one chick that got under Turk’s skin but she was the better surgeon… kelso took turk to medical conference and the only reason why in the show was cause of the other surgeons gender… then there was the blond boss of Turk who specifically talks about the targeted harassment… this was all early 2000-2010s…
Can a giant meteor just strike the earth already?
I absolutely disagree that humanity needs to be destroyed because a bunch of men can’t stop sexually abusing those around them, but the fact that it seems easier than ever getting them to stop really goes to show how bad the problem really is.
No need. Homo sapiens is near the end anyway. Doesn’t matter how it ends, if we get replaced by AIs, the next "Homo geneticmodified"or get wiped out. Kind of awesome to know, right? After 250,000 years, we’re among one of the last Homo sapiens. Peak Homo sapiens.
You know what that means, “Homo sapiens”? It means “wise man”.
We’re going to get completely ridiculed for doing that in the future. Who the fuck even calls themselves “wise man”. So lame.
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