Your Stories
Here we share your stories of sexism, sexual harassment and sexual assault in healthcare. Every story is a powerful testimony, describing lived experiences and the impact of sexual violence.
Thank you to every person who has shared their story with us.
Content warnings
These stories contain descriptions of sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual violence.
All Stories — Page 5 of 16
167
I am near the end of my career in general practice I qualified in 1985. I was a bit more street wise than some on entering med school. As a medical house officer (remember them) my consultant demanded that I “let him show off his new car” . In the car he immediately reclined the seats to flat. I told him it made me feel sick and he realised I was on to him. The same man turned up in my room in the residences with a bottle of champagne at Christmas. I said how lovely and got my colleague to join us asap. In hindsight this was a very creepy and predatory.
My year has recently done a where are we now book of reminiscences including “what was the worst thing about house jobs”. Just like this campaign it uncovered vile and predatory behaviour from seniors from verbal comments to rape. I feel a bit ashamed that we didn’t speak up sooner to support each other and help those who came after us. My son’s partner is a junior Dr who has had a nasty experience and had the courage to report and was supported so, well done her and perhaps things are slowly changing
166
When I was an F1 in orthopaedics, one of the senior registrars used to steer me around ward round by my hips / bottom. He added me on social media and would ask me why I hadn’t accepted everyday until I did. The conditions working there were generally horrendous and made me so stressed I started vomiting at work. 7 years later I am still grateful that placement is over.
165
“She very quickly found her way to stardom in WAST. I bet that’s what grinding on the right cocks will do”
Hearing comments like this regularly, from someone in a ‘leadership’ role. So, so tiring.
164
I was a third year medical student at the time and the registrar assigned to my group for weekly bedside teaching told me I was beautiful and clever and got me to do things like central lines with him standing behind me to guide my hands. He also persuaded me to sneak into the closed cardiology labs on a weekend so he could do an echo on me, and took me out for breakfast afterwards.
At the time I thought he was wonderful but my friends intervened and made me cease contact. He was married with children.
163
I worked on the acute stroke unit. Whilst it was a culture of its own, there was an individual who was Portuguese, and on the flirt offence. It felt very targeted and was at times sexually aggressive. He sought to belittle me and to chip away at my self esteem – remarks such as ; “you’re not as intelligent as you think you are,” out of the blue, to try to undermine me. He’d do my share of jobs without my request or permission, to disempower me, and the touching. Touch me on the arm and shoulder, my ear, my neck, the cheek.
I simply didn’t know how to react, so often I just froze and tried to walk away. I hated it. I did my best to defend myself and to avoid him. I began by trying to flirt back which wasn’t the right approach and only fuelled it. I tried to be kind and to understand what was driving the unhappiness but that didn’t work either. I felt really disempowered and uncomfortable.
Unfortunately another Portuguese nurse joined and looked to him for exemplary behaviour, he too took to this tactic of laughing at and knocking confidence to then make sexualised comments about my height, size and appearance. The comments about my eyes, what my love life was like. It felt relentless. I felt followed. I felt uncomfortable working alongside him. There was no normal conversation and if there was it was about how unhappy he was but didn’t know what to do with his life. Obviously depressed and taking it out in unhealthy ways.
I didn’t know how to ‘fight’ back. I gave up in the end, alongside a lot of other bullying on that ward from unhappy staff members. It felt such a relief to walk away. Reading this back, I see I tried my best to defend myself and to help the individual, what I now realise is that I shouldn’t have to help or had to do this. Simply calling out sexually inappropriate behaviour is enough and although it’s not easy, it begins there.
Next time I see him (he’s been relocated), I would like to explain to him how his behaviour left me feeling and see how he feels about that now. I felt angry, cornered, trapped, taken advantage of, upset and frightened. I think it might do him a favour too to learn how his behaviour is being perceived. Continually showing off about how his way was ‘best’ and being too intimidate with certain patients.
Not for me thanks. It was not good.
162
My story is an old story that I have been reminded off, as a student nurse on placement in theatres in the late eighties the consultant who had just performed the surgery I was there to observe took me by the waist bent me over and smacked my bottom in front of all the theatre staff. Not one person mentioned it to me or said anything at the time or afterwards, I was mortified and my cheeks were burning under my mask. Years later I discovered it was considered normal for him it was never discussed just accepted.
161
I started my last placement of 1st year in mental health nursing on a ward. On my second day, I was shadowing an HCA. He was a helpful and first and I was learning. He then started making sexual comments towards me. As the day went on things got worse and worse. On multiple occasions he trapped me in store rooms and touched my groin area. On our second break, I told him I was getting something to eat, got my bag, and ran off the ward as fast as I could, I couldn’t take it anymore.
160
I became aware of sexism in surgery when I ran a webinar on bullying and undermining for muslim women in the NHS. Many female doctors and medical students reported being hounded out of theatre because they wear hijab and being denied training opportunities.
Daily harassment with expectations of differing dress codes sometimes in theatres within the SAME trust. A lack of suitable accommodations which was leading to women across the UK choosing primary care over careers in surgery.
We don’t have a problem providing orthopaedic hoods to a largely male workforce yet providing hijabs appears to be problematic and rare.
We published national research in the BMJ Open to highlight the magnitude of the issue and whilst the BMA were very supportive many national organisations did little to address the problem.
I still get rung by women who are off sick with anxiety and depression due to gendered islamophobia in the workplace.
It’s just not good enough- the NHS must do more to retain highly skilled diverse women in surgical careers. The solutions are simple (such as surgical hijabs) and other sectors such as law and sports industry have adopted diverse dress codes. The NHS must adopt a national procurement process that includes diverse dress codes.
For more information on our work and solutions go to the British Islamic Medical Association website (opens in a new tab/window).
159
A patient had been released from prison 1 and a half hours previously.
Came in as a priority call into resus. Patient was intoxicated and unresponsive due to opiate activity. Patient had naloxone given by myself. I’m an Emergency nurse and was assigned to look after the patient. After the naloxone, the patient became more aware, GCS 15/15.
The patient groped my bottom and straddled himself against it. The patient also exposed themselves. The patient then punched me in the abdomen and grabbed and groped my left breast.
I felt dirty and violated.
I saw this through all the way to the end, the patient received a 24 week sentence for sexual assault, 24 weeks for physical assault and 4 weeks for aggravated indecent exposure.
Of course this was suspended for two years. I received no help from the legal team (did not know that they existed).
Today another sexual assault occurred, so I have to go through this all again now.
158
In response to the report of a sexual harassment incident perpetrated by a Staff Nurse (male) against a colleague (female), the ward manager failed to act immediately.
When HR were informed, the incident was renamed as misconduct (any reference to sexual harassment was discouraged by HR and managers).
Furthermore, the victim (female) was subjected to being questioned by a senior clinical practitioner (female) assigned by HR, who (off the interview record) asked the victim what they had been wearing at the time they were sexually harassed.
The final response was to blame the victim – citing their clothing as being inappropriate. The incident was escalated to ward managers, HR managers and even the executive board, but was ultimately brushed under the carpet by blaming the victim for dressing inappropriately.
This was subsequently reported to NHS whistleblowers and NHS Quality Care Commission.
157
When I started work in the NHS I was a young, single woman living alone. Our consultant in charge offered to meet with me to go over some training issues and other nurses at the clinic encouraged me to go, saying the consultant was fun to have a drink with. I went reluctantly.
The consultant, who was married with children, asked me about my preferences in boyfriends which I thought was strange. After dinner he insisted on driving me home and coming into my house to continue our discussions about training.
While pretending to reach for a paper on my lap, he touched me inappropriately and I told him it was late and time for him to leave. At my door he tried to kiss me. I told some of my colleagues about this but they laughed, they said they had been out socially with him and he hadn’t tried that with them.
He later asked me to attend a conference abroad with him, when I asked in what professional capacity he said as his companion and as part of my training. I told him I didn’t think that would be appropriate. A week later one evening around 10pm he turned up at my house, drunk. I sent him home before saying that in future if he wanted to talk to me about training or my career it should be in work time.
My colleagues berated me for letting a drunk colleague drive. I sought advice and was told not to make a formal complaint, because as he was a consultant I would not be believed and the complaint would follow me throughout my career and I would be considered a ‘difficult’ employee.
After the drunk incident, the consultant refused to talk to me and would block me seeing patients. I got a job in another Trust. He carried on working there until years later he was suspended for misconduct.
156
Whilst working as an FY1 doctor across the general surgical wards, I found that polite requests (originating from the consultants, all of whom were male) that I delivered to allied healthcare professionals following ward round, e.g. requests for bloods/catheters, were commonly ignored. Following a discussion with my female colleagues, we noticed that asking our male peers to make the exact same request often resulted in them being completed. We wondered whether this was due to differences in communication skills or due to underlying sexism. Due to the general atmosphere that pervaded the team, we did not raise our concerns as we felt that we would be laughed off, I regret that we did not take more responsibility for further investigating this situation.
155
I’m lucky. If and when inappropriate physical contact happens, I do not get struck with fear. The crossing of such a clear boundary fires up a warrior in me that can stop it in its tracks, right then, in the moment. However, I know this isn’t the same for everyone, and this is why I’m writing this…
When I was an foundation Doctor a surgical consultant touched me twice on an afternoon ward round. It was just me and him ‘checking in’ on his patients, with no other witnesses.
He placed his hand on my lower back, and rubbed it ever so slightly from side to side. The first time I shot him a fierce look, the second time it happened I called it out -right then and there with a clear ‘there is no need to touch me’. He smirked and slithered off.
I felt, at the time proud that I had dealt with this in the moment. However, looking back, I’m not sure I knew how to escalate this. In retrospect I feel guilty for not handling this enconter differently. What if this happens to another staff member who isn’t able to shoot it down?
I also share this story in the hope of inspiring change. I have been working in my health board for many years and cannot recall any training in the support and reporting structures that exist to deal with sexual misconduct in the workplace. I hope campains such as surviving in scrubs will change this on a national level.
Although this incident was minor versus the stories of others, unwanted physical contact isn’t ok, and we should do what we can to stamp it out.
154
As a trainee, when operating. I lost count of the number of times my surgical male colleagues would accidentally touch my breasts and apologise. It happened so often I assumed it was because that just happened all the time and that my body was just getting in the way. I’ve been a consultant 5 years, we have loads of female trainees and I’ve never ever accidentally touched their breasts. It doesn’t happen.
153
I feel belittled by my practice educator, who regularly makes derogatory comments about women and their colleagues don’t see it because they are so used to it. Being a student I just have to keep my head down because if I raise anything, I then become the problem.