A retired British consultant anaesthetist has sparked outrage after calling for female surgeons to ‘toughen up’ in reaction to research indicating that 30% of them have been sexually assaulted by colleagues.
In his letter published in The Times this week, Peter Hilton said a “snowflake generation” of largely young, female doctors, selected on academic excellence, “clearly had not done their homework”, reports Personnel Today.
“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.”
Research recently published in the British Journal of Surgery (and reported in MedicalBrief last week) found that 63.3% of female surgeons had been sexually harassed while 89.5% reported witnessing such behaviour.
The survey of more than 1 700 surgeons in the UK, commissioned by the Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery (WPSMS), also found that 29.9% of female surgeons had been sexually assaulted.
The Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine said: “On behalf of our members we write to express our disgust and dismay over comments made by Dr Peter Hilton that doctors subjected to ‘sexually inappropriate comments and actions’ should accept this as part of medical training and practice. Such actions represent criminal behaviour and are wholly unacceptable.”
Dr Rhiannon D’Arcy, a specialty registrar in public health medicine, congratulated the newspaper for printing Hilton’s letter and “truly airing medicine’s dirty laundry”.
“The experiences of female medics regarding sexual assault and harassment in the workplace are routinely dismissed, minimised and ignored in the interests of maintaining the status quo. In writing his letter, Dr Hilton has inadvertently provided the perfect exemplar of why such issues prevail,” she said.
Dr Stephanie Susay, a consultant anaesthetist, said she was shocked and saddened by Hilton’s letter. “His comment that female trainees and surgeons should ‘toughen up’ in response to misogyny and sexual harassment reveals his own attitude to the prevalent, unsettling apparent immunity that male medical staff have against team members’ objections.”
Hilton told The Times he stood by his letter. “I’m not the only one of my generation who feels like this … colleagues I worked with agree wholeheartedly,” he said.
“Medicine is not alone in having a culture of bullying, sexual abuse, verbal or otherwise, and banter that’s in bad taste. The reality is that it is bloody hard work and it takes a lot of time to train and it’s demanding.
“When I see young girls leaping up and down with A* grades and getting into medical school my heart sinks, because they haven’t got a clue what medicine is about.”
Hilton said he was “not condoning sexual harassment” and that criminal allegations should be investigated. Asked about the WPSMS findings, he said: “From what I’ve seen, most of it is trivial. The important thing in medicine is the patient on the operating table.”
He continued: “Medicine’s tough. It was very male-dominated and now it’s not. The women who get to the top in surgery are tough – they have to be. They have coped with it without making a massive issue.”
Last month, the General Medical Council announced that zero tolerance of sexual harassment, including clear definitions of what constitutes it and an expectation that doctors who see such behaviour will act, will be included for the first time in its new professional standards from January 2024.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
British female surgeons sexually assaulted in NHS hospitals
A culture of intimidation is thriving in the NHS
Discrimination a reality for most female surgeons