He knew that behaviour was ok and that's just rotten...

Shock survey reveals that a third of female surgeons have been sexually assaulted in the last five years, but why am I not surprised?

Image by marionbrun from Pixabay

It’s tough path to qualify as a surgeon. A five-year medical degree, a two-year foundation programme of general training; a further two years of core surgical training in a hospital and then specialist training which can take up to six years. By my calculation it can take up to 15 years from starting medical school to qualifying as a surgeon. You have to be tough to survive that regime.

But if you’re a young women medic, it’s not just the long hours of study and intense on-the-job training you have to cope with - a shocking survey has just revealed that there is an established pattern in the NHS of female trainees being abused by senior male surgeons.

The report, by the University of Exeter, the University of Surrey and the Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery - exposed a shocking level of sexual harrasment and abuse by male surgeons. Nearly two-thirds of women surgeons said they had been the target of sexual harassment and a third had been sexually assaulted by colleagues in the past five years.

Women have courageously shared their terrible stories of rape and sexual assault. One told the Guardian newspaper how her attacker destroyed her career after she reported him.

“It’s not surprising so few people report sexual misconduct. In my case everyone closed ranks and ostracised me.

“I am glad I got a judgment in my favour, but I lost my career because of what he did and what happened when I reported it. I’ve left the profession altogether and have been left with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Every one of the women’s stories is shocking, but it is Judith’s experiences that has stuck in my mind, I think because of the sheer banality of it, and how it illustrates how little some men still think of women.

She told the BBC how, early in her career, a senior male surgeon used her breasts to wipe his sweating brow, in the middle of an operation.

"[He] just turned round and buried his head right into my breasts and I realised he was wiping his brow on me. You just freeze right, 'why is his face in my cleavage?'"

When he did it for a second time Judith offered to get him a towel. He responded, “no, this is much more fun”.

“I felt dirty, I felt humiliated", recalls Judith. Even worse, she says, was the total silence of her colleagues. "He wasn't even the most senior person in the operating theatre, but he knew that behaviour was ok and that's just rotten."