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Title: Exploring Medical Registrars’ Experiences of Sexism in the Medical Workplace

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Authors: King C, Kelly C, Kantor Z, Baldeweg F

Introduction

  • The Royal College of Physicians describes medical registrars as ‘senior decision makers’ (1), ‘gatekeepers of the medical assessment unit’ (2), ‘unsung heroes’ and ‘dynamic action-orientated problem solvers’
  • In contrast, the authors and their colleagues (medical registrars who identify as women) have been referred to as “a good girl”, “darling”, “lovey” and “dear”
  • At a time with high levels of moral injury and burnout within the junior doctor workforce (3) and with increased numbers leaving medicine (4), assessing and improving working conditions for women within medical registrar posts has never been more urgent

Aim

To explore and evidence the lived experiences of everyday sexism by medical registrars working in the NHS.

Methods

  • The authors diarised their own experiences to identify common themes for inclusion within a novel survey
  • The survey of UK medical registrars was conducted regarding their general experiences, training/supervision, and specifically language and comments around appearance and behaviours
  • The survey was distributed by social media networks (WhatsApp and Twitter), and those currently working within medical registrar posts (in or out of training) or having worked as medical registrars within the past five years were invited to voluntarily share their experiences of that time
  • The data from the completed survey responses was analysed (a total of 161 responses); with use of SPSS for the quantitative results extracted and thematic analysis of the qualitative data.

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Results

Quantitative data analysis (using Chi-square test) demonstrated that Medical Registrars…

  • Who identify as men and who identify as women are both witnessing sexism, with no statistical significance between the groups (p >0.05), but with an overwhelming 92% having witnessed or been aware of colleagues experiencing sexism in the medical workplace
  • Who identify as women are experiencing sexism in the medical workplace compared to those who identify as men (p <0.05), and of those who are experiencing it, 41% report experiencing sexism ‘a great deal’
  • Who identify as women are receiving specialty choice advice directly in relation to their gender compared to men (p <0.05), however results suggest this is not significantly impacting their decision-making of medical specialties
  • Who identify as women are experiencing untitling in the medical workplace (p <0.05) and experiencing staff or patients directing questions or clinical queries to a more junior colleague of a different gender (p <0.05)

Qualitative analysis of the free text answers of the survey summarized some highly impactful themes, including:

  • Traditional roles of women
  • Issues with training
  • Undermining behaviours (from colleagues, seniors, patients, general public)

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Discussion

  • The results demonstrate how everyday sexism, misogyny and microaggressions permeate every aspect of the working lives of women working as medical registrars
  • This study adds to the body of evidence around sexism in the medical workplace (5)
  • Inappropriate sexual behaviours
  • Use of gendered descriptors

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