A Liverpool doctor is leading a campaign to expose "the worst kept secret in medicine" by sharing the stories of women subject to sexism and sexual assault at work.
Doctor Chelcie Jewitt, a 31-year-old training to become a consultant in emergency medicine in Liverpool, launched the Surviving In Scrubs campaign a month ago with GP Becky Cox. On their website, they've posted stories from women in healthcare who said male colleagues or patients groped them, discussed which female doctor had "the best bottom", and made inappropriate comments about childcare, pregnancy and weight.
The 31-year-old said: "This happens to myself and to people I know on a near-daily basis. I'm not surprised by what's coming through. I am, however, quite shocked by how horrendous some experiences have been, such as rape threats. That's not anything I've experienced personally.
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"We've had a lot of healthcare workers reaching out, just saying, 'Thank you for doing this', people really chuffed that this is being done and something is finally out there. Not just in the healthcare domain, but actually out in general media. It's the worst kept secret in medicine."
A 2021 survey from the British Medical Association (BMA) found 91% of women had experienced sexism in the previous two years, 31% experienced unwanted physical conduct in the workplace, and 56% received unwanted verbal conduct relating to their gender.
Their "everyday job is someone else's worst day of their life", according to Chelcie, but women working in healthcare say they face misogyny, assault and discrimination while helping others. Among the submissions to Surviving In Scrubs - dubbed healthcare's "MeToo moment" by The Times and the Daily Mail - are stories of sexual assault, or threats of it, against women who feel their complaints aren't taken seriously.
One woman said: "A patient threatened to follow me to the car and rape me then kill my family. When I raised this to a female senior she said 'oh he's drunk, just ignore him, you're over reacting'. My male consultant said it wasn't worth raising a datix about and the patient was well know for his difficult behaviour.
"I had nightmares for weeks and still hate walking out to my car alone after a late shift. I look back on this as a female consultant now and am horrified at the advice I was given. Threats of sexual violence should not be accepted behaviour. I would never leave my juniors in a room with a patient like that, or allow alcohol as an excuse."
Another wrote: "I was a trainee on a course where two consultants from my department were faculty. One of them said he was worried I had had too much to drink and would walk me back to my accommodation. He invited himself in and suddenly turned on me sexually. I couldn't stop him. Afterwards he said nasty and humiliating things and laughed uncontrollably when I saw him next.
"He told some of his colleagues what he had done. I recognised that I was surrounded by misogynists and that even the people I had socialised with or looked up to would make it worse if I spoke to them about it, so I didn't. One of the other consultants said, when I let him know that I was leaving the department 'I reckon it's only a matter of time before one of my sons violates some woman'."
The stories include inappropriate comments, including to one woman who said she was told she "should have my tubes tied before applying for ST3 otherwise it would be a waste to give a training job to someone who may get pregnant".
Another said: "Mid consultation with a male patient he told me that I could lose weight if I ate more salad. He also told me that I looked really good and thinner when I wore a dress. I have not worn a dress to work since this conversation."
Previously, Chelcie was "just going along with" the sexism she faced in her role because she was "too scared to speak up". When she was considering emergency medicine as a speciality, colleagues told her it "wasn't family friendly" and "wasn't a job for a woman to do", which she found "demoralising and demeaning". Roughly 61% of women respondents to the BMA survey said they felt discouraged from working in a particular specialty because of their gender.
Chelcie said: "It was normal, and it's still very normal now to experience sexism at work, but I didn't know that it was wrong, because it was so normal. When you're at the bottom of the hierarchy, it's very difficult to kind of stick your head above it to call things out.
"Everyone knows that rape and sexual assault is wrong and definitely shouldn't happen, but the other stuff, the more day-to-day things such as being belittled, talked over, not being thought of as a doctor or as senior or as knowledgeable - it's 5,000 papercuts basically - that people don't realise is wrong. It's all part of the same culture towards women in healthcare."
She added: "There seems to be an awareness in medical students now that I definitely didn't have when I was back in med school, and I don't think any of my friends were aware of these kinds of problems at that stage, so it does seem to be changing for the better."
The Surviving In Scrubs campaign is calling for more standardised and easily accessible reporting procedures for cases of sexism and sexual assault. It is also asking the General Medical Council (GMC) to explicitly condemn "sexist behaviours, or sexual harassment and sexual assault" and to make clear that perpetrators "will be held accountable".
Professor Colin Melville, the GMC's medical director and director for education and standards, said "there can be no place for misogyny, sexism or any form of sexual harassment in the medical profession". The GMC said the current consultation on its guidance for doctors sets out a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment, setting out for the first time that any form of abuse or discrimination is unacceptable, The Guardian reports.
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