Sexual misconduct in medicine enabled by training environments
Published: 2 October 2025
Medical trainees are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and are often shut down or silenced when they do report incidents, finds ground-breaking research led by the Universities of Glasgow and Dundee.
Medical trainees are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and are often shut down or silenced when they do report incidents, finds ground-breaking research led by the Universities of Glasgow and Dundee.
The study, carried out by Professor Rosalind Searle from University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School, and Lewis Garippa from the University of Dundee, follows a surgical trainee’s sexual harassment and abuse (SHA) reporting journey.
Those that are subject to sexual harassment and abuse in medical training do report – but these concerns are not heard or are silenced by others.
The structure of training can make it into a hot spot for sexual harassment and abuse, contributing to trainee isolation and exacerbated by their lack of knowledge of reporting procedures in different training placements.
Reporting is often an act of citizenship, motivated to reduce the abuse of others. Medicine’s competitive professional culture contributes to opportunistic silencing as others choose not to hear informal reports.
Current reporting practices fail to serve those who report, and the means to uphold the standards of this profession more widely. In addition, these systems and structures make incidents of sexual abuse much more likely to happen.
It identifies four stages of voice and silencing to reveal what triggers reporting, reporting barriers, ways to prevent SHA in healthcare settings and to improve formal reporting. Sexual harassment and abuse (SHA) are a persistent concern in medicine, with behaviours especially common place and directed towards those entering the profession and during training. SHA levels in medicine vary, with greater prevalence found in specialities including psychiatry, family medicine, obstetrics, gynaecology and surgery.
Training contexts - where individuals rotate through a temporary placement - make medical trainees particularly vulnerable, and perpetrators take advantage of this to target their abuse. When incidents are reported different parts of the system shut down, silence or choose not to hear them.
This important research worked with someone who has been a target of SHA, using trauma informed methodology to gather their story. Academic researchers created a trusting space for an individual to share their experiences and gain back some of the lost agency and control sexual harassment and abuse creates for targets.
Professor Rosalind Searle said: “Silence and silencing and the experiences of one individual can have growing damaging repercussions for everyone else in the healthcare system. SHA experiences can often derail professional careers, alter speciality choices and undermine workplace policies. And such events create and perpetuate a toxic workplace.”
Commenting on the study, Professor Vivien Lees, Senior Vice President at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England), said: “This important research highlights extremely concerning behaviours within healthcare. Failure to address sexual harassment and abuse, particularly at a critical point of a medical trainee’s career, can be extremely damaging. These failures also risk leaving perpetrators in power and eroding trust in the profession.
“We need a system based on compassion. One that supports those who come forward, rather than deterring them. We want to ensure everyone in the workplace is fully aware that there is a zero-tolerance approach to sexual misconduct. Safe patient care must be at the forefront.
“A centralised national anonymous reporting mechanism for sexual misconduct should be established. This independent platform would allow staff to report incidents without fear of bias or retaliation, ensuring that even those in vulnerable positions can come forward safely.”
This research shows it is not underreporting but the scale of institutions’ cultures, processes, structures and training environments which makes trainees vulnerable, and overwhelms and undermines SHA reporting efforts. It advances understanding of the original SHA event as actually part of an ecosystem of escalating harms that extend from the perpetrator to other colleagues, patient safely, the regulator and SHA support agencies.
The work is funded by National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).
First published: 2 October 2025