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 7 of 16
143
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.
142
I’m currently an FY1 working my first rotation. As a medical student I experienced a lot of sexual harassment. With inappropriate touching and comments. I had one placement in a men’s prison where the patients would masturbate to me or tell me what they would do to me and it was laughed off by the doctors I was shadowing.
Now as a doctor, colleagues tell me that I find it easier to get help because I’m slim and pretty.
There is one male nurse on our ward in particular who will approach me from behind and start massaging my shoulders.
141
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.
140
A male consultant running a teaching session for SHOs (all male apart from 1 female IMG) repeatedly commented that the woman’s place is in the home and looking after the children and has no place in the workplace.
139
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.
138
Male consultants would repeatedly send female trainees to paeds ED stating that ‘the girl should go to paeds’ and laughing about it as they did. As a female trainee I was repeatedly sent to Paeds ED by male consultants while my male colleagues would be prioritised for resus. I would then be criticised for not putting myself forward to work in resus enough. However even when I did I would often be moved out of resus to paeds so that a male colleague could work in resus and would be told it was because I was really competent in paeds and the male colleagues not – suggesting that they needed to work there to gain experience was not received well.
137
2nd day on Surgery as an F1. Was walking onto the ward to collect notes. A male nurse I’d never met before came up behind me without saying anything and started massaging my shoulders. When I turned around he said he’d mistake me for someone else. In the moment I did say anything because I needed to continue with the ward round and I didn’t want to be late for the consultant.
136
I have had the very common experience of being called nurse after introducing myself as a doctor (and wearing differing scrubs/ a stethoscope). However, I’ve also had patients, their families and seniors refer to me as “the wee girl”. I have never noticed any of my male colleagues be referred to as a “wee boy”.
Moreover, since starting anaesthetics training I’ve had the the rather rude experience of being interrupted by surgeons (usually male) while consenting patients for an anaesthetics so they can complete their consent process. Discussing this with other trainees it seems to only be the female trainees who are interrupted by the surgeons and it seems to also be that we are often interrupted as the surgeon has mistaken us for a nurse not the anaesthetist.
This is problematical on many levels, including not been viewed as a doctor by male colleagues and the idea that it’s OK to interrupt a nurses work.
135
Very junior doctor starting a new job – warned in advance that a particular consultant within the department was known for being sexually inappropriate. Within the week he had made a supposedly flattering comment about my eyelashes and had reached up to brush them and my face when he did so, also he used to have his hand on the small of your back when he was talking to you.
At the time I felt too junior to say anything. It was horrible.
134
I was involved in a conversation with work colleagues about the housing market. I mentioned that my boyfriend had bought a house recently.
The on-call consultant, whom I had worked with on numerous previous occasions, remarked, “Ah, she has a boyfriend! Now we have no chance!” The remark was unexpected, and made me feel weird and uncomfortable.
On the same unit, a different consultant (one whom I had also worked with on multiple occasions), immediately remarked that I had put on weight since he had last seen me over a year previously (when I had been an FY2). There was no preamble to this at all; I had not sought his opinion regarding my appearance. Again, I felt uncomfortable and self-conscious.
I was a 26 year old female medical trainee when these incidents occurred. On both these occasions, I felt that certain professional boundaries were crossed that were inappropriate. Due to the power hierarchy, I felt unable to confront them at the time.
133
When I was a newly-qualified doctor, I saw a patient in a urology pre-assessment clinic. He told me he had a lesion on his penis and I felt duty-bound to examine him. As soon as he exposed his penis, he grabbed my hand and tried to make me masturbate him. I withdraw my hand immediately and told him to get dressed and leave the room. As he was leaving the room, he came towards me and tried to kiss me.
I told my (male) registrar what had happened and he laughed (I think he was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say). I told my other more senior male registrar that I didn’t want to look after the patient when he came in and he agreed.
A few weeks later I saw the name of the patient in the admissions diary…still under our team. When I challenged the senior registrar he got annoyed and said “look, my wife is a teacher and sometimes she gets kicked by the kids”….as if to say “shit happens, get on with it”.
I told the male consultant who oversaw the surgical trainees. He said he could find me some support if I felt I needed it and gave me the details of the police liaison service if I wanted to press charges. On top of the distressing assault, I feel like I was failed by at least two, if not three, men who should have supported me.
I didn’t press charges as there were no witnesses and I was worried it would affect my reputation/training. I strongly regret that now. There was no come back for my perpetrator whatsoever.
132
When I (she) was a junior trainee, one of the senior male consultant anaesthetists came into my anaesthetic room and started joking with my male ODP about penises (an anaesthetised patient was in the room).
I felt uncomfortable and the consultant turned and said to me “I suppose you think I’m being unprofessional?”. I didn’t answer as I wasn’t sure what to say.
A couple of weeks later I was called into my educational supervisor’s office and told there had been a complaint made against me that I had accused a consultant anaesthetist of being unprofessional. I was upset that this unfounded and slanderous accusation had been made against me.
I didn’t feel able to challenge the consultant anaesthetist from fear it would a) be pointless b) affect my reputation c) make for difficult working relationships if I did a list with this consultant in the future d) affect my future job prospects.
In retrospect I should have asked for a mediated meeting with this consultant to challenge his false accusation. As it happens, he became the departmental lead and he gave me a substantive post so I’m sort of glad I didn’t rock the boat….but that is a dreadful message (!!) and I should never have been put in that situation.
131
I work with a near-retirement-age male surgeon who is mildly flirtatious. I normally just ignore his remarks.
One day he offered me a plum in the surgical coffee room in theatres. He said they were from his own garden. When one of his male surgical colleagues came into the room the surgeon said “*victims name* is enjoying my juicy plums”.
I felt quite uncomfortable but the problem with sexual innuendo is that it’s usually deniable and the blame/shame is put on the complainant for misinterpreting what was said.
130
When I interviewed for Medical School I had a panel of 3 retired male doctors, one of the first questions I was asked was “why should we accept you to medical school? the likelihood is you’ll get halfway through training then have children and give up
129
When I expressed an interest in applying for surgical training, a consultant sat down and drew me a graph of “the number of my eggs decreasing as I get older and through training” to try and put me off.