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Sexual Misconduct: Female NHS Surgeons Report Colleague Sexual Assault In Past Five Year

NHS

(CTN NEWS) – A recent comprehensive survey, the largest of its kind, has revealed that nearly one-third of female surgeons in the NHS have been subjected to sexual assault by their colleagues over the past five years.

This disturbing pattern of sexual misconduct within the profession often goes unaddressed, with potential repercussions for patient safety, according to a research paper to be published today in the British Journal of Surgery.

In a broader context, the survey highlights that two-thirds of women employed in surgery have encountered sexual harassment from colleagues within or near the operating theater.

Shockingly, the study also documented 11 reported cases of rape among participating surgeons.

These findings cast a spotlight on the hierarchical structures and lack of accountability prevalent in certain segments of the NHS.

The report underscores the pressing issue of sexual coercion, with 11% of female surgeons reporting instances of “forced physical contact linked to career opportunities.”

Frequency of witnessing sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape among colleagues in the past five years 
TYPE WOMEN – YES (%) MEN – YES (%)
Harassment: composite 89.5 81
Jokes with sexual content 89 80.6
Displaying sexualized pictures 29.7 19.9
E-comms, unwanted/sexual 26.2 16.1
Physical advances, unwanted/sexual 38.4 14.9
Unwanted/sexual talk 61.8 29.5
Uninvited comments about body 67.3 38.3
Ask for a date despite previous refusal 18 6
Offered career opportunities for sex 8.5 2.7
Threatened for refusing sexual favour 5.5 1.2
Deliberately infringing body space 44.9 17.8
Assault: composite 35.9 17.1
Forced contact for career opportunities. 16.6 2.9
Touching, excluding genitals/breasts 33.2 16.6
Touching of genitals/breasts 6.5 1.6
Self-fondling by perpetrator 1.3 0.3
Rape: composite 1.9 0.6
Rape, workplace 0.6 0.3
Rape, other work contexts 2 0.6

A ‘MeToo Moment’ in Surgery: Advocating for Cultural Transformation

In an op-ed piece for The Times, Tamzin Cuming, who serves as a consultant surgeon and chairs the Women in Surgery forum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, characterizes the current situation as a pivotal “MeToo moment” for the field of surgery.

She advocates for a transformative shift in the healthcare culture.

This survey was commissioned by the independent Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery and received support from the Royal College of Surgeons, Health Education England, and the Association of Surgeons in Training.

The survey results have been presented to key stakeholders, including NHS England, the General Medical Council (GMC), the regulatory body for doctors, and the British Medical Association.

This extensive study stands as the largest of its kind ever conducted within the surgical profession. Researchers from the University of Exeter and the University of Surrey analyzed 1,436 responses from an anonymous online survey targeting surgeons.

Their stark conclusion is that “sexual misconduct is a frequent occurrence and often goes unaddressed within the surgical environment, primarily due to the deeply ingrained hierarchical structure and the existing gender and power imbalances.”

Alarming Prevalence of Workplace Sexual Misconduct Revealed: Implications for Patient Safety

Over the past five years, an alarming 90% of women and 81% of men have borne witness to various forms of sexual misconduct in their workplaces.

Shockingly, over 40% of women have endured unsolicited comments about their bodies from colleagues, while 29% have been subjected to unwanted physical advances, and 38% have had to endure inappropriate sexual banter at work.

A disheartening majority of female surgeons lack confidence in the ability of their NHS trust, the General Medical Council (GMC), or the Royal Colleges to safeguard their well-being.

The research paper highlights a grave concern that patient safety is being compromised due to the normalization of such sexual behaviors within and around operating theaters.

It asserts that individuals who target their colleagues with sexual misconduct are more likely to cross boundaries with patients, resulting in an unsafe working environment and a precarious space for patients.

This year, the Times Health Commission received accounts of sexual assault and harassment linked to a pervasive “boys’ club mentality” within the field of surgery.

The survey corroborates these findings, revealing that women in this male-dominated profession often experience and witness sexual misconduct to a greater degree. Currently, only 28% of surgeons are women.

Dame Jane Dacre, former president of the Royal College of Physicians and a member of the Times commission, attributes this widespread sexual misconduct to an outdated culture that alienates women.

She emphasizes how this culture erodes professional relationships and creates a workforce of fearful and distracted women, potentially leading to errors that compromise patient care.

Urgent Calls for Reform: Confronting Sexual Misconduct in Medical Practice

Professor Carrie Newlands, a consultant surgeon and one of the report’s authors, emphasizes the urgent need for reform in reporting and investigating sexual misconduct.

She stresses the importance of regulators, colleges, employers, and training authorities uniting to adopt a zero-tolerance approach, as the current system is clearly inadequate.

Tim Mitchell, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, vehemently condemns sexual harassment or assault in operating theaters and the broader NHS, describing the findings as truly shocking.

He calls for a critical assessment of sexual misconduct policies and procedures within NHS trusts and regulatory bodies.

Charlie Massey, chief executive of the GMC, underscores that updated professional standards for doctors unequivocally reject sexual misconduct, and the regulator views serious sexual misconduct as incompatible with registration.

The Department for Health and Social Care states its unequivocal stance against any form of sexual violence or misconduct in the NHS. They affirm their commitment to working closely with NHS leaders to eliminate such behavior, ensuring the safety of staff and patients.

The recently launched organizational sexual safety charter, developed in collaboration with royal colleges, staff, regulators, and trade unions, emphasizes a zero-tolerance approach to unwanted, inappropriate, and harmful sexual behaviors within the workplace.

Navigating Unwanted Advances: A Surgeon’s Ordeal in a Professional Setting

Philippa Jackson, a consultant plastic surgeon hailing from Bristol, found herself in a disconcerting situation while discussing a patient with a male colleague. In an unexpected and entirely inappropriate gesture, he approached her, aiming to offer a hug.

What followed was unsettling – he made unsettling noises and deliberately pressed his body against hers. As he withdrew, he callously remarked, “You probably felt my erection then,” and audaciously commented on the visibility down her top.

This encounter was an unsettling departure from the professional and sterile environment typically associated with a hospital, leaving Jackson momentarily unsure if she had accurately interpreted the situation.

Her immediate response was subdued; they were about to enter the operating theater, and she hadn’t fully grasped the gravity of the incident. She recalled thinking, “That’s creepy,” but it didn’t hinder her ability to perform her duties, so she soldiered on.

Later that day, circumstances placed Jackson back in the same colleague’s company for an emergency surgery. This time, his behavior escalated significantly.

While offering to secure her gown – a standard surgical procedure – he insinuated, “Now you’ve given me permission to tie you up under any circumstances,” and shockingly planted a kiss on her neck from behind.

Once again, they were on the brink of entering surgery, and she chose to suppress her discomfort. She described it as feeling trapped by the situation, not wanting to acknowledge her vulnerability.

Ultimately, Jackson decided to document the incident by reporting it to the hospital. However, her attempts at seeking justice were met with discouragement rather than support.

The hospital conducted a cursory investigation, focusing on questions like, “Did you say no? Did you push him away? Did anyone witness the incident?” The inquiry left her with the unsettling feeling that she was somehow at fault.

Shockingly, the male colleague faced no suspension or significant consequences for his actions. Shortly thereafter, Jackson decided to leave her position for a different job, explaining, “You survive, then move on to the next place and just hope it doesn’t happen again.”

This unfortunate experience sheds light on the challenges faced by individuals in similar situations and the pressing need for a safer and more supportive workplace environment.

Breaking Down Barriers: Challenges Faced by Female Surgeons in a Male-Dominated Field

Roshana Mehdian-Staffell, a trainee specializing in trauma and orthopedic surgery, has encountered a prevalent “boys’ club mentality” within her field.

One male doctor went as far as suggesting that a full-time surgical career was unsuitable for mothers, a notion she found both offensive and discouraging.

Mehdian-Staffell candidly shared her experiences of being subjected to sexual harassment on numerous occasions.

She recounted disturbing incidents where individuals entered the sluice room (where waste is disposed of) and inappropriately encroached upon her personal space, engaging in unwelcome physical contact.

On one occasion, a person entered the room and made a lewd comment about her attire, insinuating that she should always wear short trousers due to her supposedly “sexy” ankles.

Surgery remains one of the most male-dominated areas within the medical profession, despite the fact that women constitute more than half of medical school enrollments.

Shockingly, only 28 percent of surgeons are women, and this gender disparity becomes even more pronounced in senior positions, with a mere 15 percent of consultants being female.

The challenges faced by female trainees in surgery are significant, leading to high dropout rates. These trainees frequently rotate between different hospitals each year, creating difficulties in balancing their professional responsibilities with family life.

Additionally, the field often lacks flexibility, making it challenging for female surgeons to accommodate their personal needs.

Furthermore, female surgeons contend with elevated rates of miscarriage and infertility, adding to the physical and emotional toll of their careers.

Even the tools and equipment used in surgery are often designed with male proportions in mind, leading to practical difficulties for female surgeons.

Joanna Maggs, a consultant orthopedic surgeon in Devon, shared her experience of having to balance on a stool during certain surgical procedures because the operating tables do not lower sufficiently for her stature.

This inadequate equipment height can pose safety concerns, especially when using large power tools.

These challenges underline the pressing need for greater gender equality and support within the surgical field, ensuring that women are not only encouraged to pursue careers in surgery but also provided with the necessary resources and accommodations to thrive in this demanding profession.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

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