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.

I doubt that most people realise the extremes to which male predators will go to assault and rape women. It wouldn't have occurred to me either until relatively recently that it was something I'd have to worry about if I have surgery again.

How embarrassing and humiliating for the men involved that it's so evident they can't be trusted, as a sex class.

I mean, shit. "Hi son, I know you're lovely, but the thing is a huge number of men take every opportunity to abuse women. And the men who don't do it themselves, don't stop other people doing it.

So you're going to need a lot of supervision throughout your life.

Sorry about that."

Before I left nursing, I was hit by a dr for asking him to stop watching tv so we could meet a patient care deadline.

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

Honestly while society definitely devalues women, I think most of them don't give a shit. It's not that they don't realise it isn't wrong, they don't care. Their victims and the impact upon them mean nothing to them.

Before I left nursing, I was hit by a dr for asking him to stop watching tv so we could meet a patient care deadline.

Bloody hell! That's awful. I'm so sorry.

Fuck me. I am due surgery soon - can I ask for a female surgeon and lots of female staff?

I think it’s high time CCTV in operating theatres. If a patient doesn’t want to be filmed they can opt out, but everyone should be offered a copy of their tape.

Why are men so fucking vile? And before anyone says that it’s not all men, it pretty much is. If a man thinks he can get away with it he’ll do it. Even the ‘perfect’ husbands.

The culture amongst clinical staff in the NHS is foul and toxic and has been for years (source - I worked there). It's so unbelievably hierarchical that it actually leads to poor clinical outcomes because consultants refuse to respect clinical staff at lower ranks either professionally or personally.

For a recent example see the terrible case of little Martha Mills who died a slow (over 11 days), agonising, gruesome and totally preventable death before the eyes of her frantic parents because Level 7 consultants refused to deal with Level 5 PICU doctors and remove her to PICU when she met all the clinical signs for severe sepsis and ultimately septic shock.

Martha was just one of the 1 in 150 people who die every week in the NHS so called 'preventable' deaths ie substandard care.

The whole organisation is culturally rotten. So this sexual assult news does not surprise me as I see it in the context of the organisational toxicity within the NHS.

It's so unbelievably hierarchical that it actually leads to poor clinical outcomes because consultants refuse to respect clinical staff at lower ranks either professionally or personally.

You're right but I think medicine around the world is generally very hierarchical whether it's public or private. It isn't just an NHS thing. It's a problem in healthcare generally and definitely needs to be tackled though changing the entire culture certainly won't be easy.

@Chikoletta Source for that please.

I appreciate that, IHateWasps.

@IHateWasps It has to be hierarchal, how can a hospital not be hierarchal.

I'm shocked at this report really but then considering what came about the police last year I'm not, it seems to be everywhere. And then we have people telling women to shut up about not protecting the last few spaces we have alone.

Of course there has to be a hierarchy, every company has a system of management, but there's a difference between having a hierarchy but everyone is respected to and listened to and feels able regardless of their status to raise issues and a system where no one can criticise, question or draw attention to concerns regarding anyone who is "higher in status." The latter is a very real problem in healthcare.

Utterly depressing to read this isn't it? No respect for women.

Absolutely, I don't think we should ever underestimate the lengths that predators will go to be around their chosen victim type. They will enter holy orders, they will train to work with children, they will associate closely with certain charities, they will profess a new gender identity.

I do think that medicine is different in that you need to be very bright and very committed to get in. So I do think the cultural context of the NHS is important here.

@Noselikeyorkshirepud hierarchies can act productively or toxically. In the NHS it's the latter.

A productive hierarchy means that everyone does their role but that communication lines flow up as well as down. This does not happen in the NHS. So for example in the Martha Mills case I gave as an example, the girl died because the Level 7 consultants on the Liver Ward saw the Level 5 PICU doctors as below them. They also ignored the nurses who documented observations which met the markers of septic shock. They also dismissed Martha's mum as overly anxious (because they're misogynists and presume that all parents are hysteriacal and prone to using the dreaded 'Dr Google'). This all came out in the enquiry, it was documented that the culture was the issue here. The senior clinical staff have little respect for the professional judgement or the personal boundaries of staff whom they percieve as 'lower' on the hierarchy.

Years ago channel 4 (I think) did a programme about the state of the NHS and showed one Trust where the CEO was routinely shouted down and ignored by the consultants because they were hugely well qualified and he was just a bean counter. They were obnoxious, smug, arrogant, it was horrible.

I'm due surgery in the coming months and felt uncomfortable saying I do not consent to junior doctors practicing vaginal or breast exams on me while I'm sedated, but after this I think I'll have to raise the whole topic.

Yet my surgeon seems lovely, and it's hard to tell him stories like this make me very untrusting.

Surely only peer pressure will ever make a difference, nothing else seems to have worked.

There’s a cultural difference between a hierarchy built on levels of responsibility, accountability and care, rather than on power.

Do gay make surgeons assault young male trainee surgeons? If not it would seem that it is the environment that women are seen as resources for men , in and out of the operating theatre that is a contributing factor. Many men have grown up in that environment. Rather than sex driven lust. Which surely all humans are susceptible to. But most restrict it to consensual expression.

Years ago channel 4 (I think) did a programme about the state of the NHS and showed one Trust where the CEO was routinely shouted down and ignored by the consultants because they were hugely well qualified and he was just a bean counter. They were obnoxious, smug, arrogant, it was horrible.

And yet look what happened in the Letby murders.

I suppose the common factor is lack of respect and team work. Competition and power play between departments rather than collaboration and cooperation in the interests of patients.

Bet all of this plays a role, but also if you're the kind of person who enjoys the thought of cutting people up, surgery gives you a legal route into that. Which means surgeons are probably more likely to be affected by this than other doctors.

Male surgeons are also assaulted, yes, but not as often. It isn't specifically stated in the BBC article that assailants are all male, but it would be so remarkable for women surgeons to behave this way that I think it would be mentioned if anyone had claimed this.

_

The report, which is being published in the British Journal of Surgery, is the first attempt to get a sense of the scale.
Registered surgeons - men and women - were invited to take part completely anonymously and 1,434 responded. Half were women:

• 63% of women had been the target of sexual harassment from colleagues
• 30% of women had been sexually assaulted by a colleague
• 11% of women reported forced physical contact related to career opportunities
• At least 11 incidents of rape were reported
• 90% of women, and 81% of men, had witnessed some form of sexual misconduct

While the report shows men are also subject to some of this behaviour (24% had been sexually harassed), it concludes men and women surgeons are "living different realities". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66775015

Thank you @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g .

I suppose the figures will be a little skewed as % because I would expect those affected to be more likely to complete the survey.

But the numbers represented by that % of respondents are shocking in any case.

Surgeons are held in such high regard that some appear to think they are gods. Some (if appears many) are narcissist, psychopaths and predators. Some the traits with psychopathy help with a role that depends a high level of expertise and confidence but it brings out the vile in some.

WTAF!

You know what? This culture of not speaking up or lack of whistleblowing is the same culture of "not grassing on" someone who's done something wrong. You can't have one if you don't have the other.

Some people will tell you to mind your business in one situation, then expect you to report another situation. Which is it? Look away or don't? Regardless of the severity of the crime, people shouldn't be encouraging a 'look away' culture.

Once people aren't seen as 'grass', 'rats', 'snitches', 'tattle tales' (even from primary school), etc. within any group/community, then we may start dismantling the lack of support for whistle-blowing in these organisations. It's a structural issue that should be tackled as a whole.

I used to be friends with a guy who was a doctor, ended up specialising in geriatric medicine (I'm not friends with him any more because we were both active alcoholics and drinking buddies, I cut him off as I did many of my friends when I entered recovery).

We used to get pissed and he'd tell me about his job, zero respect for the patients but that's not the point here. The point is I will always rmemeber the time that he told me that he and his colleagues made serious mistakes (ie life changing or possibly life ended) all the time, the point was they all covered up for each other and that was really important culturally.

If you think about how most consultants speak to their patients, it’s no surprise that they don’t respect them.
The men in the article clearly don’t respect anyone, even themselves. Truly grim.