Female surgeons sexually assaulted during surgery. By senior surgeons.

[EggInANest]

Wherever the hell are women safe from this stuff?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66775015

Horrific.

So many men use power, status and circumstance to sexually assault women.

And what might happen to patients? Who aren’t even conscious.

Sickening. It really does happen everywhere In every sections of society.

Honestly as time goes on I actually find myself despising men as a sex. I know not all…….but it’s just never ending.

I was just reading this article and I’m glad someone posted about it. I was reading with my mouth agape the whole time. Holy shit.

Absolutely horrific, but after working with many male surgeons, sadly I am not surprised at all.

Fuck all those men who stood by and did nothing.

Women aren't safe anywhere. Male lust can be a real evil.

A high proportion of surgeons are psychopaths, relative to the wider population, so not surprised.

Wherever men have power, this happens.

It's depressing.

What do you think is behind this?
Does the competition to get into medicine and the hierarchical nature of the workplace set off some kind of alpha male frenzy?

Is the competitive recruitment resulting in the wrong men getting chosen?

Old school networking caused a boys boarding school Lord of the Flies culture?

Does the actual power that they often have over life and death make them feel
like gods?

Would you extend your observation to female surgeons?

"And what might happen to patients who aren't even conscious"

This.

https://doctors.ajc.com/doctor_sex_abuse_sedated/#:~:text=Years%20before%20Dr.,assaulting%20multiple%20patients%20under%20anesthesia.

Not a surgeon but in the topic of sexual abuse happening everywhere a local vet who ran a one man band practice in my village for decades has just been found guilty of creating and possessing thousands of images of bestiality and child sexual abuse
The practice shut abruptly and hundreds of local pet owners are left wondering if their pet was subject to his vile behaviour. Most can't even get their pets health records to transfer to a new vet
No profession should be considered safe it seems

It's not just men in power trust me

@EggInANest Does the actual power that they often have over life and death make them feel
like gods?

Malice from 1994

If sacking were the routine result of such conduct, that might help a bit.

There is a huge problem over whistle blowing in the NHS. The fact that junior surgeons' careers are so dependent on the old boy (where are the girls in this?) network is a recipe for disaster. There needs to be some more objective way of promotion and appointments.

The fact that men feel they can get away with this - in a theatre full of others - tells us how this is perpetuated - no-one dares speak up - or do they not see it as a problem?

Some surgeons and senior consultants have a god complex.

I think there's a problem with people men simply not seeing it as a problem or important.

They see a woman who has not been physically damaged.
They haven't used up a finite resource.

They see it as funny, or perhaps almost victimless. Like, we had sex. She wasn't keen but I was.

They don't get what loss of autonomy feels like.

It's so normalised, I don't think we teach youngsters to appreciate what actually happens.

Maybe a cartoon demonstration of some random non consensual behaviour could make explicit something people see to find hard to grasp- that other people's bodies aren't theirs to utilise.

I wonder whether a helpful illustration would be something about a person being expected to fetch, carry, lift, reach, assist at all times with no regard to whether they want to or their own convenience. I think maybe boys could imagine that better.

I dunno. We've thoroughly failed as a society to communicate this.

Just watching BBC breakfast. Surgeon apparently "wiped his brow" in a female surgeons breasts!

I genuinely think women's bodies are so much seen as a public resource it's hard to unravel.

If big exaggerated face licking was a thing- spitting on your hand and wiping it on someone's hair- people instantly recognise the vileness of that. And crucially because it's weird and random it's unisex.

If touching someone was seen as akin to that I think there'd be a more visceral revulsion.

Please, I know it isn't the same, I'm a survivor, I'm just trying to work out how we get through to these people exactly how unacceptable it is.

They don't seem to accept it emotionally - rationally maybe, but not emotionally.

What gets me is the fact half a dozen other members of staff are there too and condone - anaesthetist, nurses, theatre porter. All adults who can tell right from wrong. You’d think they’d at least send an anonymous letter to HR.

And what might happen to patients? Who aren’t even conscious.

www.nzherald.co.nz/world/brazilian-anaesthetist-accused-of-raping-woman-during-c-section/Z4GD7OCVESNSMQ3J7BLP6TQKSA/

I used to work with a cosmetic surgeon, he had previously been a police surgeon. He thought I should enjoy him perving at me, commenting on my breasts and slapping my bum. He couldn’t understand how I didn’t like it.

For reference I was 19 and he must have been late 40’s - 50’s. This was in the 90’s.

Men disgust me sometimes.

We're not safe from rape and assault even when we're dead.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/15/david-fuller-jailed-for-of-two-women-and-abuse-of-over-100-corpses

I don't know if I'm lost for words, too angry to think or most depressingly really not that surprised or shocked by this terrible report about the treatment of female surgeons.

This is shocking. If not wholly surprising, which is a sad indictment of society.

What's mind boggling is that these men can get away with it in a theatre full of people.

That link posted above about patients being assaulted under GA has really shaken me today, and let me reeling at my own naivety.

Teenage DD had surgery a few weeks ago under GA. The surgeon, assistant surgeon and anaesthetist were all male, as was the head theatre nurse. When DD was taken to the anesthesia room, the anaesthetist told me they were just waiting for the second, female nurse to arrive before they could start. I was very anxious but I remember vaguely thinking that it was nice they had built-in chaperoning, as it were. But it never actually occurred to me that it was wholly necessary . I feel like an idiot.

I feel like an idiot.

You're not an idiot.

Those thoughts would happen. It's terrifying.