Operating Room Nightmare: Female Surgeons Report Sexual Assaults during Procedures

An extensive analysis of NHS staff has revealed that female surgeons report to have experience sexual harassment, assault, and in some cases rape from male colleagues.

Women who experienced sexual assault in the operating room while undergoing surgery have been interviewed by BBC News.

According to the Reports, senior male surgeons have a history of abusing female trainees, and it is happening right now in NHS hospitals.

The results, according to the Royal College of Surgeons, were “truly shocking.”

Untold tales exist of men rubbing their erections against female staff and men fondling women while they were wearing scrubs or male surgeons wiping their foreheads on their breasts. Many people have received job offers in the sex industry.

Exclusively provided to BBC News, the analysis was conducted by the Universities of Exeter, Surrey, and the Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery.

A third of the female surgeons who responded to the researchers’ survey and nearly two thirds of them claimed to have experienced sexual assault by a colleague in the previous five years.

Women claim they lack confidence in the NHS to act and are afraid that reporting incidents will harm their careers.

It’s uneasy to speak honestly. Judith asked that we use only her first name. She is now an experienced and talented consultant surgeon.

She was sexually assaulted early in her career when she was the person with the least power in the operating theatre and according to her when a senior male surgeon was sweating he would use her cleavage instead of requesting for a face towel.

“[He] just turned round and buried his head right into my breasts and I realised he was wiping his brow on me.

“You just freeze right, ‘why is his face in my cleavage?'”

“When he did it for a second time Judith offered to get him a towel. The reply came back “no, this is much more fun”, she says, “and it was the smirk – I felt dirty, I felt humiliated”.

“Even worse for her was the total silence of her colleagues.

“He wasn’t even the most senior person in the operating theatre, but he knew that behaviour was ok and that’s just rotten.”

This happened to Judith in the middle of the operating theatre, but the sexual harassment and sexual abuse extends beyond the hospital.