Preparing Residents to Respond to Incidences of Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment: An Interactive Workshop. South Med J 2022 Oct;115(10):740-744
Date
10/04/2022Pubmed ID
36191909DOI
10.14423/SMJ.0000000000001459Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85139174166 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 2 CitationsAbstract
OBJECTIVES: Gender discrimination and sexual harassment are common in academic medicine. There are limited data on how to prepare medical trainees to respond to these incidents. The objective of this work was to understand the experience of residents with sexual harassment and to evaluate the impact of a low-cost educational intervention to better prepare residents to respond to incidents of gender discrimination and sexual harassment.
METHODS: We adapted a national faculty development workshop to be given to Internal Medicine residents. The workshop had three components: an introduction to the problem of sexual harassment, cases for guided practice, and review of Title IX. The workshop was presented to residents during protected academic time and assessed with pre-/post- surveys.
RESULTS: The majority (65, 73.0%) of residents reported at least one incident of gender discrimination or sexual harassment in the prior 6 months; 62 (69.7%) residents reported an incident of gender harassment, 26 (29.6%) reported unwanted sexual attention, and 2 (2.3%) reported an incident of sexual coercion. The majority of residents (53, 62.4%) reported previous training, but only 28 (32.6%) felt well trained. Compared with before the workshop, residents reported more comfort (mean 2.88 vs 3.39, P = 0.0304) with and confidence (mean 3.47 vs 3.88, P = 0.0284) in responding to incidents of harassment. After the workshop, residents were more likely to use active responses, including express discomfort (15.0% vs 51.0%), express a preference (15.0% vs 53.1%), and debrief (13.3% vs 63.3%) and less likely to ignore the incident (56.7% vs 34.7%).
CONCLUSIONS: This workshop offers one potential solution by better preparing residents to actively respond to incidents of gender discrimination and sexual harassment.
Author List
Farkas AH, Scholcoff C, Lamberg M, Shah H, Fletcher K, Yecies EAuthors
Amy H. Farkas MD, MS Associate Professor in the Medicine department at Medical College of WisconsinKathlyn E. Fletcher MD Professor in the Medicine department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Cecilia Scholcoff MD Associate Professor in the Medicine department at Medical College of Wisconsin
MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
HumansIncidence
Internship and Residency
Sexism
Sexual Harassment
Surveys and Questionnaires
