Dr Peter Moore: Don't think depressing behaviour would have happened in sister Annie's time

This is not a question I would have asked two weeks ago but we now hear that a third of female surgeons have been sexually assaulted by a colleague in the last five years. 90 per cent of women and 81 per cent of men working in hospital have witnessed sexual misconduct. There have even been eleven cases of rape reported.

These depressing figures came from nearly 1,500 replies to an anonymous online survey carried out by the universities of Exeter and Surrey. Women are often afraid to report sexual misconduct in case it affects their career. Hospitals are hierarchical with a power im-balance. But was it 'ever thus'.
It is a long time since I worked in hospitals but these figures came as a surprise. When I qualified I worked in a hospital where there were four house officers, two house physicians and two house surgeons. Unusually for the 1970s I was the only male. We worked 120 hours a week, all day and alternate nights. I enjoyed working with my colleagues and we got on well as friends. My women colleagues were all very bright and I cannot imagine any of the team behaving inappropriately towards them. They were also ardent feminists who had made it into medicine when most medical students were men. We were incredibly busy. My only thought of bed was to sleep. In the operating theatre we were scrubbed up. We could not put our hands by our side and definitely not touch anything apart from the operating field.

The wards were run by very powerful ward sisters. I can still remember one called Annie. It was vital, as a very junior doctor, to keep on the right side of Annie. She was also extremely protective of her nurses who she referred to as her 'girls'. I cannot imagine how she would have reacted if any doctor sexually assaulted one of her nurses. It would probably ruin his career. She would have spoken to the consultant resulting in appalling references.

There was one relationship which did develop between my colleague and our SHO. I am sure it was consensual as, the last time I heard from them they were still married.

I was tempted to point out that, however terrible the behaviour, this was in hospitals. It would never happen in my speciality of general practice. I then read about the GP in Swindon facing allegations that he had sex in his consulting room.

I was not only horrified and a bit mystified. He may have behaved appallingly but he appears to be far more organised than I was. I usually ran late and then kept having interruptions. "Please can you look at this ECG”, “Please can you help take this difficult blood sample” or “Please can you look at this rash”. None of these interruptions would have been conducive to successful sex. And how does he explain to patients, “sorry I’m running late. I was having sex”.

In my career I only heard of one colleague who was, quite rightly, stuck off for sexually assaulting patients. Now most doctors are female and women patients can be reassured that this appalling behaviour is very rare amongst male doctors and, as in this alleged case, ends up in a tribunal.

There have been cases of GPs having consensual affairs with colleagues, but not on the consulting room couch. When there was publicity about a GP having an affair with his practice nurse I overheard our nurses talking about it over coffee. “There isn’t a doctor in this practice I would want to have an affair with anyway”. I had never thought of having an affair but I was not sure how to feel. It is not a line from a Mills and Boon novel.

I may be that, as a naïve male I just did not notice what was happening, but this is unlikely. Let’s hope that this study is the medical professions “#metoo” moment. Medicine is tough enough without the women facing unwanted sexual behaviour.