Sexual Harassment between Doctors

Sexual harassment between doctors is a common problem hiding in plain sight. There have been prevalence studies across the world, across contexts and across disciplines and although definitions, methodologies and results vary, the prevalence of sexual harassment in medicine continues to be unacceptedly high. Harassment is more common when the survivor is still in training, and it is more likely to be experienced by doctors who live with multiple marginalisations. This book combines expert analysis and commentary from multiple interdisciplinary perspectives. It privileges the voices of survivors, whose rich experience helps to inform our understanding of a complex problem. With contributing authors from Austria to Zambia, the book spans multiple languages, sociocultural contexts, and academic disciplines and offers unique globally contextualised perspectives. It gives leaders, scholars and survivors a nuanced, holistic understanding of sexual harms between doctors, and it demonstrates how silence prevents effective evidence-based management of sexual harassment. This volume not only helps to break the silence, it also offers potential solutions in discrete cultural contexts. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Louise Stone is a general practitioner, with clinical, teaching, policy, and research expertise in mental health, health care systems, medical education, doctors’ health, and professionalism. She has had senior leadership roles in Australian General Practice training and is currently a Professor at the University of Adelaide. She has academic appointments at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne and her clinical practice is in Canberra, Australia.

Rosalind H. Searle is founding director of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology’s Impact Incubator. She is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Science (FASS), the British Psychological Society (BPS), the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), and the Royal Society of Arts, and an academic fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personal and Development (CIPD).

Elizabeth Waldron is a PhD student in psychology at the Australian National University, with a background in psychology and gender studies. They are a fierce advocate for social justice, with an interest in the ways that individual and structural factors interact to influence the way people move through the world. They have a particular interest in mental health, neurodivergence, and disability.

Christine Phillips AM is a general practitioner and health services researcher. She leads the Social Foundations of Medicine group at the School of Medicine and Psychology at the Australian National University, where she teaches social sciences and medicine in the medical school and the Master of Culture Health and Medicine programme.

Kirsty A. Douglas is a clinical GP and medical academic at the Australian National University. She was Professor and head of department of General Practice at the ANU for ten years until 2024. She has held several concurrent roles combining government policy advice, primary health care health services research, medical education, and clinical general practice work in the private, not for profit and community-controlled services.