Your Stories

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.

A male CSW constantly massaging my shoulders, and the shoulders of other female members of staff. When he’s called out on it, he just laughs it off. When management were informed of it (and for inappropriate comments), he was just moved to another department.

Being told that I’m too pretty to be a lesbian, being told its a shame I’m a lesbian.

Having my weight commented on, being asked if I’m pregnant.

Being dismissed, being talked down to, being ignored, having referrals refused.

A male consultant would repeatedly unwantedly put his hand on my shoulder often coming up from behind which would make me jump, which he seemed to find funny. He would also stroke my arm while talking to me or attempt to put his arm round me. I would try to shake it off or move away and repeatedly told him to stop. It made no difference to his behaviour. When I told a colleague it made me uncomfortable (understatement it made my skin crawl and left me shaky and feeling sick) I was told that’s just him and I needed to get over it.

Following a clinical incident with 2 locum consultants and finishing 2 hours late because I had to sort out the mess caused by them I was fairly pissed off. As I tried to leave work 1 of them approached me and commented that I wasn’t very smiley (it was the height of COVID round 2 and I was wearing a mask). He moved towards me and tried to hug me. I stepped back and told him not to touch me. He continued to move towards me and forced a hug I stepped back and shouted again. Another consultant (also male) came across the situation and told me to go home as I was clearly tired. When I provided a statement about the clinical incident I reported the unwanted hug. Another male consultant came to speak to me about it I was looked up and down and told me ‘it won’t have been meant like that’. I felt unable to pursue it further but requested that I was not left to be supervised by the individual again. My female ES also told me that the hug ‘wasn’t meant like that’. A week later I was told that it had been discussed by the consultants and that if I didn’t want to work under the locum consultant I could move to work at our other site (split site department) when we were on shift together. I had never worked in the other site before. I declined as I felt that I was being punished for his bad behaviour. I was also aware of multiple incidents of him unwantedly touching female HCAs and junior doctors that went unaddressed when the few who felt they could speak up did.