Sexism in surgery is rife, says consultant
OPERATING theatres are ‘hostile environments’ for female surgeons, who have to endure sexist comments from male colleagues, a consultant claimed yesterday.
Comparing modern surgery to ‘an old boys’ club’, Jyoti Shah said women in senior roles were referred to as ‘the nurse’ or asked to make the tea.
The consultant urological surgeon added: ‘Surgery remains very male dominated – it does still appear as an old boys’ club. You’re very much an outsider as a woman, trying to break into their gang.’
There is just one female surgeon for every eight male surgeons working in England. Numbers are gradually increasing, with 800 women now holding consultant surgeon positions.
But Miss Shah, 44, who is also editor-in- chief of the magazine Medical Woman, is concerned that sexist behaviour may discourage young women from joining their ranks. According to a survey of newly qualified female doctors in 2013, 68 per cent believed surgery was not a career that welcomed women.
‘ This is about saving lives – recruiting the best talent possible talent regardless of gender,’ Miss Shah told the BBC Today programme yesterday.
‘Women are tough, resilient creatures, and we are facing this culturally ingrained behaviour by our male colleagues.
‘Discrimination exists and it has been existing for far too long. It’s time we did something about it.’ Miss Shah, who works at Burton Hospitals in Staffordshire, said the problem was partly because most of the senior positions in surgery were taken by men.
‘I know one woman who as she was operating, she leant over and the consultant whom she was operating with very gently brushed against her breast,’ she added. ‘More subtle forms are being referred to as “the nurse”, being in a meeting with men and being the only woman and you’re asked to make the tea.
‘There needs to be a cultural change so that women don’t feel uncomfortable or inferior.’ Clare Marx, the first female president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said hospitals were improving, but there was a fine line between a joke and sexist abuse.
‘We can’t tell people to change their
‘Confront your
aggressor’
culture, we have to grow the numbers and show the way we can change the culture from within rather than dictating, she added. ‘Laying down rules doesn’t work.
‘Women who have come through the career to date have been very alone. Women, just as men, can do anything they want, as long as they can access the free support of their colleagues.
‘There is a societal issue and I have certainly been the recipient of a patient, who when I went to explain a very complex operation, at the end of it all asked when the surgeon was coming.’
However, not all women in the profession agree about the scale of the problem. Gill Tierney, a consultant surgeon from Derby who trains doctors, said sexism was not widespread, and women should simply laugh off such comments.
‘I’m sad that they have had those experiences but that would not be my experience,’ she said.
‘I think humour is a very valuable skill in this profession.
‘It isn’t like it was 20 years ago. There are female role models in surgery now. And lots of us have families, lots have children. We don’t want girls to be put off applying.’
But Miss Shah said women should not condone sexist humour.
Writing on the British Medical Journal blog, she said: ‘Don’t laugh at comments. Confront your aggressor and point out why the comment is offensive. Educate them.’