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.

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All Stories — Page 2 of 16

214

As an female F1 on an orthopaedics firm I experienced a number of instances of sexual harassment. For example – at the work Christmas party whilst in a taxi with colleagues, one of the consultants made an unwanted advance, touching me on the thigh twice. The following year after having left the trust, I was added to a WhatsApp group by the same consultant, inviting me to the next Christmas party – on looking more closely, only the female F1s had been included.

213

I’m a student nurse but I also work on the bank as a HCA. One day on shift, I noticed a patients oxygen levels dropping. I wasn’t sure if they were receiving oxygen therapy, so I decided to clarify with the consultant. As I approached the consultant, he was speaking to an F1 and another bank HCA, who was also a med student. All three of them are males. When asking if the patient needed oxygen, they all sniggered and laughed, as well as making some comments under their breathe. I asked ‘what’s the joke?’, where none of them answered and continued to snigger. I’ve never felt so humiliated in front of three, male professionals. After reflecting on this, it felt like a sexist situation and as a consequence, I’m now wary of asking these simple questions. It turned out, this patient was quite unwell and ended up requiring oxygen therapy.

212

When I was a junior doctor working in general surgery I attended a twilight shift in my scrubs. I went to say hello to my colleagues on the surgical ward which was very busy. A senior colleague of mine greeted me, looked down at my breasts and said ‘ can I ask you something, where are your boobs?’ in front of around 10 colleagues. Only one colleague spoke up. The rest were quiet. The worst was the matron laughed in my face. I reported this to the head of surgery and he was given a warning. He then proceeded to come and ‘apologise’. Instead he berated me and told me that it was a joke and I should know that he has that sort of personality. He then told me that he wanted nothing to do with me in a threatening voice.

211

I work with a team with 3 managers. 2 middle managers and 1 senior manager. I am female ~ 60, and am one of the middle managers. The senior manager is male and late 40’s, the other middle manager is late 30’s and male. For the past year I have experienced exclusion as the norm – discussions happens between, and decisions are made by my two male colleagues together only.

When all 3 of us are meeting with the wider team, any views I express are immediately shot down by the senior manager and I feel regularly denigrated in front of the juniors. On the other hand, views expressed by my male colleague are immediately hailed as high value by the senior manager even when they are clearly totally ridiculous. At these meetings with Juniors, there is almost constant eye contact between my two male colleagues. I always leave those meetings feeling totally excluded, humiliated and feeling very down, wanting to quit. My male colleague, although much less qualified, experienced, and very much less productive than myself, is promoted highly around the Trust by the senior manager, while he seems to try to hide me, but inevitably my performance and productivity speaks loud on my behalf.

On a number of occasions I have received clear ageist comments from my male middle manager colleague. My request to have excess time worked back was refused by senior manager, although my male colleague takes time off for excess time worked, with no evidence of when the time was worked. I am a very experienced manager myself and there is no question that what I am experiencing is gender and age discrimination. I have not done anything about this up to now, because apart from these 2 male colleagues, I really like working at this Trust and I like it’s staff in general. It feels good to get this out there in this story, and undoubtedly there will come a point when my tolerance runs out and I will act.

210

The list is countless.

Messaged on Facebook by the “equipment library technician” things like “when can I see that beautiful smile again”. Harassed by a male nurse whilst on a psychiatry placement- constantly asking me about my boyfriend and sex life whilst I was at work. Male A&E registrar waited for me outside work after a late shift, then invited me to his room “to have cake” as it was his birthday, then tried to kiss me when we were alone – when I was a GP trainee and he knew I had a boyfriend.

The worst thing was being raped by a fellow F2 after a night out at the pub. I refused to go to F2 teaching after this as he was there, and was asked about my poor attendance. I told them I had been raped by a colleague; they excused me from the teaching and that was the end of that.

Sexism is rife in hospitals. There wasn’t a single placement I did where I wasn’t creeped out or actually assaulted by a male colleague.

209

Working in a very busy emergency department as one of the registrar doctors on a weekend shift. We were already holding on ambulances and only had one space left in resus. I went to review a patient on the back of an ambulance who was scoring a 7 on his News. He had an infective exacerbation of his COPD.

Immediately I felt a strange vibe from the male paramedic who had been looking after him in the ambulance. I was interrupted on several occasions while taking my history, he felt that the patient either needed resus, or should stay in the ambulance on a monitor instead of going onto the corridor when a space was made available. I explained that my plan was to do an ABG and ensure he hadn’t decompensated, but that if he hadn’t I would be happy for him to go on the corridor. This would mean we could start treatment and have him in an area we could keep an eye on him as a department.

I was getting push back already from the paramedic, so ensured my consultant agreed with my plan, which she did. I arrived back in the ambulance with the gas, which was fine. I was interrupted again by the paramedic asking to interpret the gas himself (I hadn’t released I needed to run ABGs passed my paramedic colleagues before). I explained I was happy for the patient to go on the corridor, and that I would start treatment there and refer him to the medics. Again, I was interrupted by the paramedics explaining to the wife and patient that we would have to wait for bloods and CXR to then decide if he would be admitted (I hadn’t realised that it was the paramedics who decided who was being admitted!).

I had to explain that given he was on oxygen, even if all the tests come back negative I would be keeping him in. I then went to prescribe, refer etc. in our office. By the time I came back to the corridor I found that the paramedic had taken the patient in, told the senior nurse on the corridor that this was a standby who needed to go into resus. He had dumped the patient in the last space in resus and left the department, completely undermining everything that I had said and done.

I escalated to both consultants on shift who were angry on my behalf and escalated it to the paramedic in charge. I do feel quite strongly that if I was a male doctor, instead of a blond, young, female doctor, this would not have happened.

208

I was working on a ward when a junior doctor asked for my phone number. Other members of staff pressured me into giving them my number. The junior doctors text me to ask me on a date and I politely declined. However, the doctor would text me multiple times every day even if I didn’t reply. I had to block the number but then he would turn up outside my department and wait until I left or would ask my colleges to tell me he was waiting for me. On one instance he was getting aggressive because I wouldn’t talk to him and I had to be escorted to my car just in case he followed me.

He would often turn up wherever I was working to talk to me even if I made it clear I didn’t want to. My male colleagues said it was my fault and I must have led him on. I didn’t know how to report it and thought it wouldn’t be taken seriously. Eventually he went to another hospital to work and it stopped. After he left I found out he had previously been accused of sexually assaulting a female medical student but nothing had been done and the female student had left the hospital instead of him because no one had helped her when she reported it.

207

During an exit interview with 2 senior staff and another foundation trainee the conversation turned to what we would be doing next. I said that I was keen to explore research and asked for any insight or advice. Neither of the staff had any insight and the most senior suggested that I shouldn’t worry as females tended to work pt in general practice and raise children with the other half.

Years later, and after several years of PG training, I met with a surgeon who I thought could be a potential research supervisor during my MSc. After giving me the up and down look we proceeded to have a conversation that involved the following questions: was I single, what was my living situation, what age was I, could I afford to do a PhD… being 31 at the time he suggested that even though I was currently a “free bird” I might not be a good candidate, despite having no insight into my previous qualifications.

206

It’s isn’t just women who are victims. I am a man and had a thriving and promising career in the London Ambulance Service for 15yrs until my manager ended my career because I refused to sleep with him. I am not gay, I am straight and married, however this manager who is now a very senior Manager in the NHS abused his position culminating in booking 1 hotel room for an NHS conference in Birmingham and laying in bed naked when I went to the room unaware there was just one double bed.

205

I worked at a hospital. During the induction address the person giving the address suggested that there were many places to have sex in the hospital. That was an unwanted joke. That was sexual harassment. On returning to my work station a work colleague who I had previously not even noticed flirted with me. Which was a direct result of the suggestive comments made in the induction. There was no one to tell.

204

I had worked hard to promote myself and learn new skills within the hospital labs and was keen to take on a more senior role.

However when an opportunity came up for a promotion within a department that I interviewed for I was told that despite scoring identically with the other male candidate that I was considered to be a risk because ‘I may go off and have a baby’ and therefore was not offered the job. I didn’t report this at the time as I felt it was pointless and that I would not be listened too.

Following on from the rejection I was regularly used as a senior member of staff in all areas to supervise more inexperienced skill mix. I became disillusioned with the service and have since left. The department is very insular with little progression.

One of the male senior staff was known amongst the female staff for staring at your chest whilst talking to you and making inappropriate comments.

Misogyny and inappropriate sexual behaviour/ language is rife in the NHS. Opportunities for women to progress are limited especially for part-time roles

203

In my first year of medical school a student I knew held me down after a night out and attempted to rape me but was interrupted by another flat mate who pulled him off me. The attitude of both of them was we’d all been drinking and I shouldn’t have gone back to their flat so it was best not to say anything more.

The next year I was living in a mixed house share. One evening I was asleep in bed and woke to hear 2 house mates come home with another 2 medical students. They were talking loudly and I heard one of them say “go up and see”. One of them came up the stairs, walked into my bedroom and took his clothes off before climbing into bed with me. I froze and pretended to be sleep but despite this he pressed his penis into my bottom and started rubbing himself against me whilst touching my breasts. He eventually got up and went back downstairs where they all started laughing.

When I was 20 I went to a gynae clinic with dysmenorrhoea and saw a male gynae Spr. Following a speculum examination he raped me with his hand bunched in a fist. There was a nurse observing and she just turned away. When he’d finished he held his hand up to me to show me that I was bleeding and told me “look what you made me do”. The nurse went and got a sanitary pad for me to wear to go home. It was painful sitting for the rest of the day. I told a friend who told me it wasn’t ’real rape’ and told me to forget about it. I reported it to the trust a year later who promised to investigate but their response was that he had used a poor examination technique and had now moved to another trust so could not be contacted. The nurse apparently said she was not aware of anything having been wrong whilst she was chaperone.

During my clinical skills training I was in a break out group of 6 students practising female pelvic examinations on mannequins. There were 4 men in the group and throughout the session they proceeded to talk about what sexual acts they would do if it was a real person. At the point where one student fisted the model I walked out of the room. I reported the incident to our clinical tutor (and disclosed my experience in the gynae clinic to her) but this didn’t lead to any discussion with us as a group of medical students about what was appropriate behaviour.

These all happened over 20 years ago and I can picture them like they were yesterday.

202

As an FY1 I had an undiagnosed medical condition which prevented me from starting work. The Consultant looking after my care was excellent medically and seemed to take a really kind interest in me. He helped me get through occupational health and into work and he also helped with a transfer application on health grounds. He also offered placements with him for learning purposes which I thought was really kind. He started to email more and change the conversation to personal things. I was initially so grateful that he had helped me that I tried to ignore the discomfort of this. I felt I had encouraged this somehow by being friendly and appreciative. It ended up that after an appointment after declining drinks out, he trapped me in his office and it felt like I was there for hours while other patients waited. He wanted my number, which I couldn’t escape from giving and he texted me repeatedly afterwards. I managed to leave after a Nurse came in to say his patients for the afternoon were leaving because he had kept them waiting so long. I was so grateful that she came in as I was terrified and couldn’t get to the door. I didn’t go back for more medical treatment after that and asked my GP to look after my care instead. Her response to me was that this was common for him and he had left his wife for his previous House Officer so I was just the latest. This did get escalated by the Education team and I had to speak with the Dean who interrogated me on whether I had slept with him and just regretted it and whether I had worn my engagement ring to appointments. It was horrible being a witness, I was threatened by the Foundation team, singled out by the hospital Medical Director to explain why I was doing this and I had my own reputation investigated clumsily by HR. It was an awful process as an FY1 to go through with no support and victim blaming at every level, which I now see clearly, but at the time I was so vulnerable and felt huge guilt and shame.

201

The words “she needs a sh*g” said about me in front of everyone after a professional disagreement with a more senior male nurse, even worse it was said in front of other senior nursing staff who all put their heads down. Biggest regret of my life not reporting it, I was newly qualified at the time. I still think about it filled with anger.

I no longer work in this place.

200

I was working in a department which had a reputation for consultants bullying juniors. Almost all of the consultants were men. They made various comments during the time I worked there including asking how much we (a group of junior female colleagues) weighed, and then guessing our weights, commenting on the Lycra a colleague who cycled to work wore, including saying they’d seen her in the park in her Lycra, and asking us individually when we were going to have children and how we thought we could continue with this career with children. They openly criticised people for working less than full time. Overall it was a toxic, sexist environment, with men who constantly needed to nurse their egos.