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.
Wait, so Scrubs was right about surgeons?
Most jokes are based in truth. Except absurdist humor.
Sure, I just didn’t expect ‘The Todd’ to be systemic.
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.
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
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.
You ever notice how in almost any industry, hobby, geographical area or any other demographic you care to pick, a story about sexual assault will get traction and then people in that demographic will be like “Yeah, sexual assault is kind of an open secret here”? Surgery. Fucking surgery. Someone is trying to give someone a new lease on life, a gift most precious that very few can bestow, and someone else is like “I’ll bet I can get a fistful of tiddy”, and an entire room full of people are like “This is fine and normal. Let’s not do anything about it.”
To be honest I’m not surprised. Have you ever met a surgeon before? Quite a few assholes who think they’re King of the world.
Found a study that looked at the correlation between difference in hierachial status within the workspace and sexual objectification. In short they found that women sexually objectify men regardless of status, men sexually objectified women of a higher status then them much more than women of lower status.
I wonder if this plays in here as well. Since surgery has some of the most arrogant asshats regardless of gender.
Shit like this keeps making me lose trust in men. Having some decent male friends who are married and have kids, counter balances it. Though now, I always assume that any man is perfectly capable of being a predator.
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.
Meh, I’ve gotten erections in the weirdest circumstances, it’s not necessarily happening because of the situation, but in spite of it. Still would’ve never thought to rub it on someone, lol
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
That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific/mathematical language used in statistical studies.
Considering the title of the study is “Sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape by colleagues in the surgical workforce, and how women and men are living different realities: observational study using NHS population-derived weights”, I feel like the stress on the ratio is intentional.
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…
Who else remembers the Todd?
Todd five! 🙏 Alright!
Apparently when I’m coming out of anesthesia I’m a massive perv and will make really inappropriate come ons to the medical staff. I feel even worse about it now that I know they already have to deal with it from their coworkers. I already warn them that it happens so at least they are forwarned right?
I think generally, they understand that you’re not in control of yourself. It’s like being drunk, but you didn’t make the choice to drink in this case.
A bit of an assumption on my part, since I’m not medical staff. And of course it won’t be universal.
Surgical tech, here. ^spot on.
We do, however, appreciate the warning if you know ahead of time that you wake up pervy, angry, violent, terrified etc.
For example, I’m a bigger guy, so if I know you wake up swinging fists, I’m going to make sure I’m near your upper body when you wake up so I can stop you from hurting yourself, one of my coworkers, or myself.
If you’ve got PTSD or something and wake up terrified (we see this with vets a lot - their first thought is that they’ve been captured), then I’m going focus on cleaning up my back table when you wake up so the first thing you see isn’t some big hairy dude; and let whoever on the team is the best at verbal de-escalation take the position by your upper body so they can reassure you as you’re waking up.
And if it’s your first surgery, we’ll adjust as we go.
I always get erections while cutting people too
/s
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