Women should toughen up about rape
There was a story in the Times about sexual assault of female surgeons on September 12, which drew responses from female surgeons saying you’re damn right it happens on September 13.
Sir, Further to your report “1 in 3 female surgeons assaulted by a colleague” (Sep 12), these incidents are not limited to surgery and occur through out all medical specialties. For years our organisation has highlighted the mistreatment of women in medicine, from misogyny and sexual discrimination to sexual assault. We are tired of being told “there is no problem” and “robust reporting systems are in place”— this is untrue. This steadfast denial makes change very difficult and contributes to the high attrition rate in women in hospital medicine. We would welcome a collaborative response to this survey. It should be from the top down, so we would welcome Amanda Pritchard’s involvement as NHS chief executive.
Dr Kate Stannard
Co-founder, Women In Medicine International Network
There was also a letter arguing for the other side.
Sir, This “snowflake generation” of young doctors, largely female and selected on mainly academic excellence, clearly did not do their homework. Medical training and practice is brutal and demanding, with long hours, and bullying happens. Sexually inappropriate comments and actions do occur. It is stressful. All I can say is that if they want to make a success of this rewarding career then they should toughen up. Perhaps four A*s at A-level are not the answer to all the problems they will face.
Dr Peter Hilton
Consultant anaesthetist/intensivist 1986-2020; Haverfordwest
Doesn’t he seem nice.
I heard a story years ago from someone who avowed it was true. A female doctor, or maybe surgeon, was overpowerted in her own (British) home and raped by two blokes who had been stalking her. Before they left, she told them: ‘Don’t worry about me. In fact I rather enjoyed it. Why don’t you come back tomorrow evening and we can have a party, and do it again properly?’ Or words to that effect.
So they duly returned the next night, and found she had laid out a table with snacks and bottles of booze. She asked them each what they wanted to drink, and quiely slipped a ‘Mickey Finn’ of some kind into each of their glasses. After they duly passed out, she got out her medical tool set (no pun intended there) and castrated both of them.
As I recall, she was duly hauled into court by the cops on serious charges, but the case raised such a public stink and controversy, she got off very lightly. It was one of those cases about which one can say: ‘If it was not true, then it should have been.’
He also seems to be very knowledgeable. So how much of this toughening up did he offer himself?
He seems upset that anyone would see this abusiveness and hostility towards women as a bad thing. Is he also in favour car crashes? House fires? There are lots of bad things that “do occur” that we try to prevent, because they are bad things. The cutting of surgery is in itself a bad thing, but it is an unavoidable consequence of medical practice itself. Done correctly, by properly trained and qualified practitioners, it is often a vital, necessary step in the pursuit of the patient’s improved health and quality of life. Of course that training is going to entail long hours and be demanding, even harsh. You want to weed out those who can’t do the job well enough because people can die. But bullying? Assault? Harassment? Rape? No. None of these are going to make anyone a better doctor, and aren’t needed to discover those who are not up to standards. Those things don’t just “happen.” They don’t simply “occur.” People choose to do these things. He’s defending this choice and believes it’s a necessary part of medical training.
JFC, WTF is wrong with people!?
High-stress situations call for *even more compassion*, *even more empathy*, *even more kindness* than usual, not the other way around… because *everyone* is stressed and tired!
I would not want Dr. Hilton anywhere near me or anyone I know under any circumstances, professional or social, given the utter lack of human kindness he seems to have left to offer. There is no excuse for being this much of a self-centered prick.
Nice of Mr. Hilton to be so sanguine about the additional stress and bullying he didn’t have to go through.
ALL the medical students and junior doctors face “brutal and demanding training. ALL have to work long hours, and the work is stressful for ALL.
Maybe the male doctors need to “toughen up,” to learn how to train successfully under such conditions WITHOUT bullying junior or female colleagues, and WITHOUT resorting to sexually inappropriate comments and conduct. It’s not the women who can’t cope without behaving badly, it’s the men who behave badly. Put the burden on the correct party; it’s the bullies, the sexual assaulters, the slanderers, who need to “toughen up” to deal appropriately with the rigors of their training.
It could be a result of this pervasive atmosphere that has resulted in a phenomenon that I have long noted: that male surgeons are almost all assholes, to a man. As in, right-wing, über-conservative, arrogant, holier-than-thou assholes.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
The school where I taught has an auto mechanics department. Some of my female students told me about the sexual harassment and bullying they got from the men in the department. I reported it to the head of the department. He told me he always sat down with women when they enrolled and explained what they would have to face so they could be prepared.
Zing! Wrong answer. Sit down with the MEN. Tell them the women better not have to face that. I reported his answer to my dean. Nothing happened. Big surprise.