Operate with respect: how Australia is confronting sexual harassment of trainees

It has been a year since Gabrielle McMullin’s claims of rampant sexual harassment of trainees rocked Australia’s college of surgeons and triggered an unprecedented drive for cultural change across the medical profession.

McMullin, a vascular surgeon, stunned physicians and the public with a frank interview given on International Women’s Day in which she described an entrenched culture of sexism within the surgical profession and impunity for perpetrators of harassment and abuse.1

Relating the story of a neurosurgical trainee2 who was unable to find work in the public system after taking legal action against a senior surgeon for propositioning her for sex, McMullin made headlines by claiming that the trainee would have been better off agreeing to have sex.

The remarks sparked a firestorm in the press, unleashing a wave3 4 of similar stories that thrust the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), which represents surgeons in Australia and New Zealand, and medicine more broadly into the spotlight.

“The reason it was such a huge story is that it is such a huge problem,” said McMullin.