‘No way I could speak up’: two female medics describe sexual assaults by surgeons

Almost one in three female surgeons working in NHS England have been sexually assaulted in the last five years, according to a survey published in the British Journal of Surgery. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA Wire

Rachel, consultant plastic surgeon

“I was raped by a senior trainee in the ’90s. He groomed me with stories over weeks of helping me with my CV and getting a training number but that we would need to sit together to do that. He was confident, good-looking and popular, and bragged about his position, contacts and wealth. He was in every way a clone of what a successful man is perceived to be, or at least that was what we were raised to imagine and, sadly, are still told.