Tonight the host of ABC’s 7.30 Leigh Sales interviewed Dr Gabrielle McMullin, the vascular surgeon in Sydney who commented that female trainees might be better off complying with unwelcome advances from senior colleagues “for the sake of their careers”.
Her reported comments were perplexing and the sentiment disturbing. Her interview with Sales was, thankfully, far more constructive.
“Is the system really that rank or were you exaggerating to make a point?” Sales asked McMullin about her comment that a female trainee would be better off to give a blow job to a senior colleague than report him for harassment.
“There are cases where women have been targeted for sex and their refusal has led to the ruining of their careers,” Dr McMullin said.
In the case of Caroline Tan, a Melbourne neurosurgeon who complained about sexual harassment as a trainee and was subsequently sidelined, McMullin says that – whether it’s palatable or not – from a career perspective acquiescing might have been easier.
“For [Caroline} she may well have better off in that she has never been appointed to a public hospital even when she’s the only neurosurgeon applying, she looks over her shoulder constantly and she has no support peer support,” McMullin said. “Her career was ruined on that night – if she’d given in she might have been given a great job.”
Even so, Sales asked, is the solution for women to simply accept this rather than fight it?
“No. Of course, we need to fight it,” Dr McMullin said. “We need better processes so that women like Caroline and everyone else who finds themselves in that situation are heard and not punished for putting their hands up.”
Sales said the Royal College of Surgeons has been critical of Dr McMullin’s stance and insist they work with hospitals to ensure a safe working environment.
“12 surgeons have approached Fairfax Media since Friday and refused to give their names because they’re afraid of the impact on their careers,” Dr McMullin says.
And surgery remains heavily dominated by men.
“In almost every other discipline women have filtered through but that hasn’t happened in surgery,” Dr McMullin says. “There is some discussion that it would take 175 years for it to happen at the current rate. The numbers of women are actually decreasing in some areas.”
There is no doubt that McMullins has put the issue of sexual harassment and sexism in medicine, and particularly surgery, on the radar. Does she regret what she said?
“It was an enormous surprise. I wasn’t expecting this,” McMullin told Sales. “It was perhaps an inadvertent remark but I wouldn’t take it back because it has opened such a can of words and has gone so far that I am hoping it will be positive. That we can set up some institutions that will improve things.”