DR. MAX PEMBERTON: Misogyny and the day my boyfriend was groped by a fellow surgeon

Doctors are only human. We do things wrong and sometimes behave badly. But there seems to be something truly rotten at the core of some parts of medicine: a toxic culture of sexism and sexual violence in our healthcare system that persists and goes unchallenged.

Now a campaign group of concerned doctors called Surviving In Scrubs has released a report published last week detailing what has been called an “embedded and normalized culture of misogyny” experienced by female doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers.

A shocking 91 percent of female doctors have experienced sexism, with 31 percent being victims of unwanted physical behavior, while 60 percent of nurses have experienced sexual harassment at work.

What is striking, however, is how much of the problem revealed in the report is related to surgery. Nearly half of all perpetrators of the sexist incidents reported to Surviving In Scrubs are surgeons.

I’m afraid I wasn’t surprised.

When I worked in surgery as a junior, I witnessed it firsthand. For example, surgeons joked about doing a ‘tube’ – a completely unnecessary breast exam – when young women came in.

Often women in the theater, just trying to do their job, were groped or touched in full view of everyone. Sexist jokes and sexualized comments were de rigueur.

Those of us who questioned this were sidelined and excluded; we were not ‘one of the boys’ and were ridiculed, ignored or even denied training opportunities. After six months in this environment, I decided that surgery was not for me.

But one of my best friends, with whom I went to medical school, decided to hold out during the surgery. Her experience was horrifying. She witnessed – and was a victim of – staggering displays of misogyny and sexual violence. One evening, after the operation, the operating team went for a drink in the pub. As she walked back to the group from the bar, her boss reached over and grabbed her breast.

As she tried to pull away, he twisted his grip and wouldn’t let go. She shouted at him to let go, but he twisted it even further. She was holding a glass of wine and tried to slap his hand away, but his grip was too strong

She instinctively used her other hand to push him away and as she did so, she threw the wine at him. It was on his shirt. He froze for a moment, then pushed her face down on the table, sat on top of her and hit her head on the table repeatedly. Her colleagues had to pull him off her.

She was off work for two weeks. The department head spoke to her and said that he would of course support her if she wanted to file a complaint. But, he added in a calmer tone, she should think about her future career.

She would soon become a consultant herself, he reminded her, and surgery is a small world. Inexplicably, given his behavior that night, the surgeon who attacked her was a popular man. Everyone would know she had ended his career. People wouldn’t want to work with her knowing she was the kind of person who would file complaints.

Instead, she was told to attend a meeting with her attacker, where he muttered an apology and looked contrite. He continued to work until his retirement several years ago.

But it’s not just overt, scandalous (and criminal) things like this that she had to endure. During her annual review just before she became a consultant, the three men on the panel before her discussed how they thought it was irresponsible of her to become a surgeon when she had four children. “As a mother you have to be at home,” said one of them.

My friend is tough. Despite all this, she completed her education. She is now very successful and loves her career.

But why should she have to put up with such horrible behavior from colleagues?

Who could have blamed her for giving up her career? But what a tragedy that would have been for the countless patients this extraordinary surgeon would help over the years.

The interesting question is why this culture exists.

I think part of the problem lies in the nature of being a surgeon. What they need to do often requires the ability to compartmentalize things.

They often look numb and distant, and these are qualities that can come in handy when faced with an unconscious body on an operating table that needs to be cut open, but not so good when you need to communicate with other people.

But this feels like looking for an excuse, when nothing can excuse the kind of behavior my friend was exposed to.

A bigger part of the problem is that surgeons are held in high esteem and are often treated like gods in hospitals.

This means that bad behavior can go unchallenged. It is often the result of allowing the boy culture in public school to continue unchecked. It exists because it is allowed to exist.

Senior surgeons and managers simply cannot allow this type of culture to fester any longer.

For the sake of future doctors and their patients, misogyny should have absolutely no place in medicine.

I’m shocked that it even needs to be said.

Bobby’s courageous dance for mommy

Bobby Brazier’s dancing tribute to his mother Jade Goody this weekend left the Strictly judges in tears.

One can only imagine how her death, when he was only five, must have affected him.

When I worked in child psychiatry, part of my job involved supporting bereaved families. Of course it is extremely traumatic. Small children can feel the devastation of those around them, and this is often what affects them most, even though death remains a strange, abstract concept. However, children tend to adapt. While for adults the grieving process is often about how to deal with the feeling of loss, I have noticed that younger people often look for ways to hold on to the person. For many there is a fear of forgetting them.

It is often a good idea to encourage grieving children to create a memory box containing items that remind them of the person who has died.

Keeping their memories alive is crucial for children.

Yesterday we learned of the foiled deportation of a foreign criminal when a handful of passengers on a plane at Gatwick protested. It comes after the case of rapist Yaqub Ahmed, whose deportation was also halted in 2018 but who was eventually deported in recent months.

Ahmed’s victim described the years of torment she endured as a result. ‘You thought you were such heroes. But you just kept an evil predator here to haunt me for years,” she said, addressing the passengers who refused to let the plane take off.

I work a lot with victims of sexual violence, and I am repeatedly shocked by the lenient sentences perpetrators receive and how people from abroad use human rights to avoid deportation. The average person wants us to protect the victim, not the criminal.

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