Survey shows gender harassment is ‘strikingly common’ in oncology
Results of a survey showed 70% of participating oncologists experienced sexual harassment within the prior year, which correlated with decreased physical, mental and professional well-being.
Ishwaria M. Subbiah, MD, MS, a medical oncologist and palliative care and integrative medicine physician at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as well as a Healio Women in Oncology Peer Perspective Board Member, and colleagues noted that movements such as #metoo and #TIMESUP have reached the medical field, motivating work like this study to explore the incidence of sexual harassment in the field.
“Clinical oncology encompasses diverse clinicians from various practice settings, cultural backgrounds and subspecialties,” Subbiah and colleagues wrote. “Understanding exactly what happens, where, when and to whom is essential to inform efforts to transform culture and eradicate problematic behaviors.”
The researchers collected responses to the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) from oncologists who they reached using ASCO’s Research Survey Pool and social media. The SEQ includes all three dimensions of sexual harassment as proposed by social scientists: gender harassment, sexual attention and sexual coercion.
“A key aspect of the study is that it follows the recommendations of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to define sexual harassment to include gender harassment,” Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, FASCO, FASTRO, a co-author of the study and member of the Women in Oncology Peer Perspective Board, told Healio. “Gender harassment includes sexist remarks and crude behaviors.”
Researchers analyzed survey responses from 271 participants (53% white, 35% Asian/Pacific Islander; 11% self-identified as African American or Hispanic), including 153 cisgender women and 118 cisgender men, 63% of whom were born in the U.S. Additionally, 94% identified as heterosexual, and 15% identified as a sexual or gender minority.
Results showed that 70% of respondents — including 80% of women and 56% of men (P < .0001) — reported an incident of sexual harassment in the past year perpetrated by a member of their institute.
Specifically, 79% of women and 55% of men reported gender harassment (P < .0001), 22% of women and 9% of men reported unwanted sexual attention (P = .005), and 3% of women and 2% of men reported sexual coercion.
“Gender harassment is strikingly common in medicine, as our study reveals,” said Jagsi, who also serves as deputy chair of radiation oncology, Newman family professor of radiation oncology and director of the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine at University of Michigan. “What that means is that we all need to learn how to become stronger allies, both to support colleagues who have experienced these derogatory and demeaning behaviors and to help stop those who perpetrate them.”
Multivariate analysis showed a correlation between sexual harassment by institutional colleagues and decreased mental health (P = .004), sense of workplace safety (P < .001) and job satisfaction (P = .001), as well as increased turnover intentions (P < .0001).
Oncologists also reported sexual harassment by patients or their families (53%), including 67% of women and 35% of men (P < .0001). This included gender harassment (women, 66%; men, 34%; P < .001), unwanted sexual harassment (5%; 6%) and sexual coercion (both 1%).
Sexual harassment by patients or their families correlated with decreased mental health (P = .002), decreased sense of workplace safety (P = .014) and increased turnover intentions (P = .0004). Such associations are “consistent with decades of research in organizational psychology” showing sexual harassment’s linkage to the well-being of workers, the researchers wrote.
Finally, the researchers noted that the outcomes were not significantly associated with physician gender, career stage, race/ethnicity or oncologic subspecialty. Although women appeared more likely to experience harassment than men, men also reported frequently experiencing unwanted behaviors.
“We hope that our study findings will lead to evidence-based intervention, including innovative approaches to foster cultural transformation through the cultivation of civility and respect, allyship and empowerment of bystanders,” the researchers wrote. “Findings that highlight the role of patients and families as perpetrators can further guide efforts to include strategies such as development of patient rights and responsibilities statements to address this common challenge.”
For more information:
Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, FASCO, FASTRO, can be reached at rjagsi@med.umich.edu.
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