CLIMATE OF FEAR: Sexually harassed doctors afraid to talk
Young women working in hospitals tell of epidemic of unwanted advances
Tess Nichol Young female doctors say they regularly endure sexual harassment while on the job but hardly anyone reports it, out of fear it will hurt or even end their careers.
The New Zealand Resident Doctors’ Association (NZRDA) believes sexual harassment is so widespread and underreported that intervention is needed.
The union is launching an investigation into sexual harassment in the profession, following its 2015 survey showing 10 per cent of the 3000 resident ( junior) doctors who responded had experienced or witnessed sexual harassment at work in the preceding year.
Half had witnessed bullying.
In one case this year, the Auckland District Health Board confirmed a senior clinician was dismissed for sexual harassment.
The Weekend Herald spoke to a number of women about their experiences.
● One doctor said she was left feeling used after an extended friendship with a senior colleague, who sent her suggestive texts but ended contact with her when she wouldn’t sleep with him.
● Another said she felt fobbed off for asking questions about a senior doctor who was dismissed from his job after sexual harassment complaints.
● One doctor said she felt unable to seek support after a patient masturbated in front of her.
All spoke of a culture of silence in the profession and the pressure they felt not to complain about sexual harassment.
None were willing to be named for fear of repercussions, and some were so afraid of being identified by employers they would not speak on the record about their specific experiences.
The problem in medicine follows reporting of the issue within the legal profession, where one in five lawyers said they had been harassed, and the rise of the global #Me Too movement.
One senior doctor said that despite being well established in her career she was still terrified of speaking out.
“Many of us have stories that would make your skin crawl, but we are silenced. The price we pay by speaking up is far too high.”
According to data provided to the Weekend Herald under the Official Information Act, only 31 complaints involving sexual harassment or unwanted sexual attention were laid at 18 of the country’s 20 DHBs between 2013 and 2017, of which 13 were substantiated.
As a result, three DHB staff were fired, two resigned and four were given a written warning.
In response to queries about its case, the ADHB said it showed there were serious consequences for inappropriate behaviour.
But a female doctor for the ADHB said she felt people were scared to speak up about harassment, and the way management at the hospital dealt with the man’s sacking reinforced that.
“I said ‘what is happening here?’, everyone was like ‘no, no, no, you don’t want to tarnish his reputation because we don’t know what happened’.”
In another case, which wasn’t reported, Helen*, a young doctor working in the South Island, said she felt used after a friendship with a senior doctor nearly twice her age.
Throughout their friendship he would sometimes make inappropriate comments, saying he wanted to sleep with her or see her naked.
She brushed them off, and when he got a girlfriend, he cut her out of his life.
“It made me realise in hindsight the entire friendship was trying to get me naked.”
She believed a formal complaint wasn’t worth the risk to her career.
“To put up with sexual harassment for the rest of my life to [achieve my career goals], it’s a choice I’m willing to make. And it’s sad I have to make it.”
Sarah* was working in Auckland when a routine check on a patient escalated to him joking about grabbing her and, finally, masturbating in front of her.
Low-level harassment was part of the day-to-day life of a female doctor, she said.
“Pretty much all the female doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals experience this low level of just sexually inappropriate conversation.
“Commenting on clothing or how you look with an implication [where it’s] difficult to say to stop. Like if you say ‘that’s inappropriate’ that’s over the top.”
As part of a plan to address the reluctance to speak up, the NZRDA wants to get rid of confidential references for junior doctors seeking placements.
Confidential references give senior doctors the power to give anonymous reviews, meaning residents may never know if the reason they missed out on a placement was because a senior doctor gave them negative feedback.
“The fear of retribution is very deeply embedded in resident doctors. It’s an immense barrier to them being able to raise these sorts of issues,” NZRDA national secretary Deborah Powell said. *Names changed to protect privacy.
Ayoung doctor says she felt used after a senior doctor sent her sexually suggestive messages during their friendship — then abruptly ended contact with her when she was unwilling to sleep with him.
Helen* was in her early 20s and in the first two years of her career in a South Island hospital, he was nearly twice her age. Although he wasn’t her direct boss, during certain shifts she had to report to him.
Helen believes she is one of several younger women the man struck up such a friendship with after meeting them through work. The pair would spend large amounts of time talking and hanging out. He would sometimes send her inappropriate text messages saying he wanted to see her naked or have sex with her — things she brushed off at the time because she enjoyed spending time with him.
The man eventually ended up in a relationship and after that stopped messaging Helen or wanting to spend time with her.
“It became very obvious I wouldn’t sleep with him so he found someone who would.
“Almost immediately he stopped texting me, he stopped seeing me. It made me realise the entire friendship was trying to get me naked.”
Shortly after their friendship ended, in November last year, a different doctor at the same hospital was independently investigated following an anonymous tip, which a spokeswoman for the district health board (DHB) said was found to be unsubstantiated.
The investigation prompted friends to talk to Helen about her own situation, making her consider for the first time whether she was a victim. She still isn’t sure.
Helen thinks other women in the same situation likely would have filed a complaint against the senior doctor, something she never did.
Helen says she regularly ignored sexist or sexual remarks from senior colleagues because she felt kicking up a fuss was likely to hinder her career.
“If I was super feminist I would probably once a fortnight have something to report that was harassing or highly inappropriate.”
The DHB says there is a clear policy around harassment and bullying of any kind and it “did not accept or condone this behaviour in our workplaces”.
Like many young doctors, Helen is intensely ambitious. “To put up with sexual harassment for the rest of my life to [achieve my career goals], it’s a choice I’m willing to make. And it’s sad I have to make it.”
SARAH* WAS a junior doctor when a terrifying incident with a patient badly shook her confidence.
Now a registrar, Sarah says the harassment occurred as she carried out a routine blood-pressure check at an Auckland hospital last year.
Sarah had withstood sexually inappropriate comments many times — but this time she was alone, and it was the middle of the night.
Her patient began to make repeated inappropriate comments about her looks, despite her attempts to ignore or defuse the situation. The man said he could see down her top, and was resisting reaching over and grabbing her.
“I felt like I had to finish what I was doing and complete everything in one go so I wouldn’t have to go back and see him again.”
Rattled, she left the room as soon as possible, realising afterwards she’d left behind equipment she should have taken with her.
“When I went back in he was
masturbating, and I just kind of panicked,” she says. “It was really awful and upsetting and I just went and cried for half an hour.”
Sarah says she didn’t tell anyone at the time because she didn’t want to burden her colleagues.
“Afterwards . . . I felt really vulnerable.”
Her feeling of vulnerability stemmed from not knowing what to do or how to deal with what happened.
“I knew I should at some point say ‘that’s not appropriate’, and you get some teaching about limit-setting and boundaries, but usually it’s from the point of view of not getting in that situation in the first place.”
An industry-wide culture of putting
up and shutting up made her feel like she’d be perceived as weak if she complained, so she never reported what happened.
“It’s like ‘that’s your job, you have to put up with it’. That needs to change,” she says.
Sarah says low-level harassment is part of the day-to-day life of a female doctor. “Pretty much all the female doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals experience this low level of sexually inappropriate conversation.
MIRANDA* IS in her late 20s and has been a doctor for four years.
She says instances of sexually inappropriate behaviour from patients and senior colleagues were common.
Earlier this year, a senior clinician was dismissed for sexual harassment at the Auckland hospital she was working at.
Miranda says the Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) did not deal openly with the investigation, the man’s subsequent firing and the fallout
that followed. “All of a sudden he went missing and no one knew why. And then we just got told one day he wasn’t coming back.”
“I said, ‘What is happening?’ Everyone said, ‘No, no, no, you don’t want to tarnish his reputation because we don’t know what happened.’”
She felt told-off, and that it was not an appropriate response from management, given the man had been dismissed following an investigation.
She also felt that this approach contributed to a culture of silence surrounding sexual harassment complaints.
ADHB confirmed a senior clinician was dismissed for sexual harassment earlier this year but did not comment
further on the specifics of the case.
Chief HR officer Fiona Michel disputed the claim the DHB and management hadn’t dealt with the case appropriately, and said there was a strong commitment to stamping out bullying behaviour at ADHB hospitals.
“Unacceptable behaviour such as sexual harassment does not happen very often in our workforce, but we are committed to making it okay to talk about unacceptable behaviour.
“We have not been afraid to terminate employment where warranted, and to provide feedback and coaching where this is the most appropriate outcome. People who are unwilling to live our values, don’t have a place at ADHB.”
information released to the Herald under the Official Information Act, the man’s dismissal was the ADHB’s fourth job loss relating to sexual harassment since 2016.
Miranda believes people are so scared to speak, that those who did only represented the tip of the iceberg.
“I don’t even think we’re capturing the actual issue. I don’t think we’re coming close to establishing how big of an issue this is.”
Female staff thought putting up with a certain amount of sexual harassment was part and parcel of being a female doctor, she said.
“It’s not f***ing part of the job. It’s not meant to be.”
*Names have been changed
To put up with sexual harassment for the rest of my life to [achieve my career goals], it’s a choice I’m willing to make. And it’s sad I have to make it.