Sexual harassment in academic medicine is widespread and prevalent with female residents in surgery and internal medicine reporting the highest rates and those in pediatrics reporting the lowest, a new study finds.
In research published online earlier this year in the American Journal of Medicine, physician and medical researcher Linda Pololi and several colleagues reported the results of a survey of roughly 1,700 residents at 14 academic medical centers across the country. About half the respondents were women.
Pololi, the paper’s first author, is a distinguished research scientist at the Women’s Studies Research Center.
Among the paper’s findings:
- Nearly 12 percent of women doing their residency in general surgery reported being harassed by colleagues or superiors in their previous two years of training. In internal medicine, it was 7 percent and in pediatrics, 2 percent
- Residents who identified as LGBTQ reported the highest levels of sexual harassment
- Women who reported that they had been sexually harassed by other doctors said they were less energized by work and had higher levels of ethical or moral distress
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