Your Stories

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.

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.

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.

There is so much sexism in the HART team and I would imagine it’s the same problem everywhere. Hyper masculinity thrives and unfortunately women are treated like objects of desire. Male colleagues regularly talk about women inappropriately. It’s all masked by the ‘heroes’ that the HART team are. I could never raise this at work without being the problem myself.

After a difficult forceps delivery done by the consultant, and assisted by me, the consultant’s scrubs were covered in blood. Consultant – “I will go to take a shower- I don’t like it alone, would you like to come with me ? ”

The midwives, who were seeing all this just said to him – “You are so naughty! “.

I was in medical school in the 80’s when there were less women in college. At one of my physiology viva’s I was asked what my skin did beyond contain me so beautifully, I was told later that my short skirt ( above knee but only just ) was inappropriate and sent the wrong messages. After an abusive relationship with a fellow student that left me feeling guilty thinking that I had caused him such pain that he had tried to strangle me, I felt hollow. Most of my preclinical bedside teaching was punctured by inappropriate flirting by my male registrars- come over here with your bedroom eyes, singling me out for extra attention etc, commenting on my boyfriend, I remember an intern touching me very inappropriately on the ward. I was continually being told by classmates/ fellow interns and SHOS that that I was the one in the class they all fancied despite me being clearly in a stable relationship, later by male patients on the psychiatry ward. The two disturbing aspects aspects to this were firstly that the pretty high achieving ones like myself felt lucky that we got the better jobs and weren’t bullied overtly ( though I can see now my abuse was just as bad) and secondly that my female peers mostly now don’t remember it being that bad or brush it away as part of a rite of passage. As an older doctor I feel we have a duty to protect and nurture our younger colleagues and to give solidarity so that is why I am posting today.

I was doing a staff information session, giving out information about different ways staff can get to site (using buses, cycle routes etc). I was approached by a Junior Doctor who struck up a conversation with me about the information I was providing. He asked me where I live, and I told him that I lived in ‘xxxx’ with my partner. He said that he lived on-site in the hospital accommodation but was actually looking at moving to ‘xxxx’. He said that he didn’t know much about ‘xxxx’ and asked if he could he contact me if he finds somewhere he wants to rent, so that I can give him advice about the area he was looking at etc. Naively I agreed to give him my contact number for this purpose.

This led to near constant messages from him- asking what I was doing, saying that he would really like to cook for me, asking if I’d come to his accommodation. He constantly messaged me even when I’d reiterate that I was actually with my partner who was not happy that he was messaging me.

It got to the point where the Dr started to message me as I was walking to/from my car to state that he’d seen me out of his window and that I looked nice. This made me feel incredibly vulnerable and as though he was watching me.

I blocked his number so that he couldn’t message me, but I was still frightened that I’d bump into him at work – and wasn’t sure how he’d react seeing as I’d blocked his number. Thankfully the Dr left and moved to a different hospital as part of his training a few months later but I do still worry in case he comes back and I bump into him.