Medical students must be protected from sexual abuse, say campaigners

Sexual safety campaigners have written to the health secretary Wes Streeting to call for action over what they deem a failure of medical schools to acknowledge the problem of sexual assault and abuse of students at university and during clinical placements.

In an open letter published on 30 September, Becky Cox and Chelcie Jewitt, co-founders of the campaign group Surviving in Scrubs, urged the health secretary to meet them to discuss the need for robust action to protect medical students.

“We ask for your support to engage medical schools to tackle the sexism and sexual violence affecting their students,” the letter says.

The campaign group has so far collected more than 200 testimonies of sexual abuse and assault of healthcare staff, including students.

This summer it wrote to all 47 UK medical schools …