There ’s no place for locker room talk in the OR

I am nearing the end of my training at one of the top surgical fellowships in the country. I chose this fellowship not just for the name, but also because the surgeons all seemed like genuine and altruistically motivated individuals. It was two-thirds of the way through fellowship when I found myself in conversation with two male trainees. We were discussing the younger trainee and his girlfriend; he would be moving away soon for fellowship, and they had decided to stay together. He mentioned that he had been operating with our program director earlier, and the topic had come up. When he told our program director that he was staying with his girlfriend, the surgeon stopped operating, looked at him, and said: “Come on man, don’t you want to go to [insert generic city name] and just pound some p#$$y.” As I heard the words, I recoiled inside from the sheer lewdness of the comment. I have always had male friends, and I was used to quickly brushing off immature male commentary. But as I walked away and started my day in the OR, the comment kept bubbling to the surface of my brain. Each time I thought of it, I became more sickened and infuriated. Hadn’t there been female nurses or anesthesia docs in the room? Were they offended? Was I allowed to be offended if I wasn’t there? Was that really how my program director, literally the person responsible for making sure that I felt safe at work, thought about women? What kind of fellowship had I really chosen, if surgeons felt ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Surgery Source Type: blogs