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Surviving in Scrubs

08

Surviving in Scrubs

Starting a new job can be a stressful time for anyone, but this can be made even worse when you’ve started your new role and find the culture of the organisation normalises sexist remarks as “banter”, turns a blind eye to inappropriate touching from other colleagues or patients, and does not have any clear reporting procedures in place to report sexual misconduct. Unfortunately, this scenario is all too common throughout healthcare organisations.

We at Surviving in Scrubs hear about similar experiences time and time again from a wide range of healthcare professionals all over the UK. We are a non-profit organisation that was set up by two doctors who are also survivors of sexual misconduct within the healthcare workplace – Dr Chelcie Jewitt and Dr Becky Cox. Through our website, we ask healthcare professionals to anonymously submit their own experiences of workplace sexual misconduct, so that we can use the power of the collective narrative to lobby for organisational change at the local and national level. We also provide survivor-focused training sessions and consultancy services for healthcare organisations, as we strongly believe that the focus of any policies regarding sexual misconduct should protect and support the survivors of this damaging culture.

Since our formation, we have had great success in amplifying the prevalence of this unspoken issue, having engaged multiple national stakeholders in admitting that there is an issue of sexual misconduct in healthcare. This is a huge step forwards, but we know that there is a long way to go until this ingrained culture has been eradicated for good.

So as we try to solve the institutional elements that contribute to this issue, what can you do as a new starter? Here are three top tips:

  1. Talk – If you witness of experience anything that you feel uncomfortable with, talk about it. This could be through formally reporting to HR or your supervisor, or if that is not something you feel comfortable doing talk to your colleagues, or even your friends and family at home. Talking about your experiences will help you to find support, but will also have the additional benefit of supporting other survivors of sexual misconduct. You could even submit your experiences anonymously to our website – www.survivinginscrubs.co.uk/submit-your-story. We have over 160 testimonies so far, and we read every single submission, so this may be a safe way for you to use your voice to help us continue to rally for change.
  1. Listen – If you witness, or someone reports an incident of sexual misconduct to you, listen. By properly listening to the human experience of others, and how it has affected them, you are being a huge support. It is particularly important for you to listen to survivors if you are in a position of privilege or power as that survivor has been brave enough to share this, and you are probably lucky enough to be able to make some kind of change for the better without fear of repercussions. This doesn’t have to be anything huge, but listening and validating the experience of survivors will help others to speak up and make others listen so that everyone realises sexual misconduct of any degree is unacceptable.  
  1. Knowledge – With knowledge comes power, so get to know your local policies (and indeed if your workplace even has a policy regarding workplace sexual misconduct). Find out who you report to – is it HR? Your line manager? A speak up guardian? You may want to look at how to report an individual to a governing body – this information should be online. Get to know your allies, who are the people you can trust to help and support you if you were to experience sexual misconduct. And get to know our website, as we have a lot of useful resources on there!

Want to know more about what we are doing? Or do you want to get involved as a volunteer? Please come and talk to us at the AMEE conference where we will have a stall sponsored by NHS Education for Scotland 26-30th August. Otherwise, you can contact us via email or social media.

Surviving in Scrubs

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