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'Ingrained culture' of harassment and bullying of medical students, inquiry told
By Kelsey Munro
Medical students victimised and belittled by senior colleagues or professors are silenced from reporting the harassment or bullying for fear they will be "marked for life" and find their career progress blocked as a result, a Senate inquiry has heard.
Gender discrimination and "teaching by humiliation" is ingrained into the culture of the medical profession, with up to half of all medical students believing that mistreatment is necessary and beneficial for learning, the Australian Medical Students' Association said, in evidence labelled by senators as "depressing".
The Senate is conducting an inquiry into the medical complaints process in Australia, with particular reference to bullying.
The evidence presented included stories of a senior male surgeon who in mid-2015 interrupted a junior female's research presentation in front of a large audience to say, "My, my, my, haven't they let you out of the kitchen a lot this month", at the same time the Royal College of Surgeons was undertaking a survey to record trainees' experiences of bullying, harassment and discrimination.
Elise Buisson of the Australian Medical Students' Association at the inquiry in Sydney. Credit: Nick Moir
And a male clinician was said to have routinely grilled female students in front of his classroom on content he hadn't yet taught, and when they didn't know the answers, said: "Aren't women supposed to be smart nowadays? Isn't that why we're letting them in?"
A female student was told her suturing was "sexy" by a senior male colleague who then stroked her back when they left the surgery, the inquiry heard.
Workplace culture in the medical profession came under sustained criticism last year when a vascular surgeon, Dr Gabrielle McMullin, made the sensational claim that a trainee neurosurgeon assaulted by a senior colleague would "realistically ... have been much better to have given him a blow job on that night" because of the subsequent damage to her career when she complained.
Elise Buisson, the president of the Australian Medical Students Association, which represents the interests of the country's 17,000 medical students, told the inquiry there remained an ingrained culture of unchallenged bullying and sex discrimination, particularly within the strictly hierarchical medical colleges and in hospital placements.
She said there was a commonly held view, even among students, that abuse was "beneficial" because "if you can make it, you're tough enough to do medicine," she said.
A survey of medical students and professionals in 2013 by Beyond Blue found that at least one in five had considered suicide in the past 12 months and for women in the profession it was more than one in four. Both rates were considerably higher than in the general population.
There was also a widely held belief that reporting misbehaviour of senior colleagues or teachers would destroy students' careers, with behind-closed-doors networks mobilised to obstruct individuals who had offended someone more established in the profession, Ms Buisson said.
"Incidences of sabotaging students' careers ... are quite common," she said, relating the story of a student who heard senior college members discussing how they picked candidates.
"We all know who the real referees are, they're the people we call who we know," the student reported a senior college member saying.
"That's really reflective of how it works in medicine," Ms Buisson said. "If you've upset somebody, [whether] because they don't like you or because you're actually not a good medical student, they can prevent you from progressing your career."
The revelations of sexual harassment in the media last year led to the Royal Australian College of Surgeons appointing an independent advisory group to investigate. Its findings were damning, including that half the college's fellows, trainees and graduates had been "discriminated against, bullied or sexually harassed" and that senior surgeons were the worst perpetrators.
It led to a public apology to victims from the college president, Professor David Watters.
Ms Buisson said there had been significant change within the College of Surgeons since the negative media coverage last year, but the other colleges had not had that same scrutiny applied to them and problems remained.
Independent senator Nick Xenophon and the committee chairwoman, Rachel Siewert from the Greens, said the Medical Students' Association's evidence presented to the inquiry was "depressing".