‘Sexual harassment between doctors: Healing medical cultures around the world’
One-third of junior doctors have experienced sexual harassment and abuse (SHA) within their healthcare system.
Now global survivor experiences and diverse approaches are brought together in a new collaborative research anthology co-edited by University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School colleague – Prof. Rosalind Searle, that will help understand and tackle the root causes of sexual harassment and abuse in medicine, and find potential solutions.
Sexual Harassment between Doctors
A new book to be published in January 2026 addresses sexual harassment between doctors — a global issue often overlooked. It combines interdisciplinary analysis and survivor-informed perspectives, offering evidence-based solutions across diverse cultural contexts.
Alongside the book are three animations:
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Explore the Facts & Myths of sexual harassment and abuse
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Consider who is affected and why
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What happens afterwards – person-centred return to work policy
The video above covers the book launch in November 2025 at the University of Glasgow, featuring three of the co-editors: Rosalind Searle, Louise Stone and Elizabeth Waldron.
Editors:
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Louise Stone, Australian National University
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Rosalind H. Searle, University of Glasgow
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Elizabeth Waldron, Australian National University
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Christine Phillips, Australian National University
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Kirsty Douglas, Australian National University
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Published by Cambridge University Press
Sexual harassment between doctors is a common problem hiding in plain sight. Studies around the world consistently find that prevalence is well above zero.
Harassment is more common when the survivor is still in training, and it is more likely to be experienced by doctors living with multiple marginalisations.
This book combines expert analysis and commentary from various interdisciplinary perspectives. It privileges the voices of survivors, whose experience helps to inform our understanding of a complex problem.
With contributors in locations ranging from Austria to Zambia, the book spans multiple languages, sociocultural contexts, and academic disciplines and offers unique globally contextualised perspectives.
It gives readers a holistic understanding of sexual harms between doctors and demonstrates how silence prevents effective evidence-based management of sexual harassment. This volume helps to break the silence and offers potential solutions in discrete cultural contexts.
This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
‘A common problem hiding in plain sight.’
One-third of junior doctors have experienced sexual harassment and abuse (SHA) within their healthcare system.
Now global survivor experiences and diverse approaches are brought together in a new collaborative research anthology co-edited by University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School colleague – Prof. Rosalind Searle, that will help understand and tackle the root causes of sexual harassment and abuse in medicine, and find potential solutions.
‘Sexual harassment between doctors: Healing medical cultures around the world’ identifies key ways to help prevent SHA in healthcare settings, including:
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Interventions that can be made during selection and training
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The role of men in allyship, leading and supporting teams in the prevention and management of sexual harassment
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Changes to the way hierarchy is managed and the nature and structure of medical work
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Changes to the management of learning environments to ensure doctors in training are safe.
Professor Rosalind Searle is working with NHS Scotland and in England and medical and other regulators to educate and introduce workplace interventions to prevent, reduce the impact of and minimise the harms of sexual harassment.
She explained: “Sexual harms between doctors is a complex problem, but not unsolvable. This is an institutional issue. Medicine is a patriarch, where your means to progress within your career depends on somebody else endorsing you. That therefore allows people to exploit others unnecessarily, promote those that favour them and shut out people that challenge their behaviours.
“Harassment is more common when the survivor is still in training, and it is more likely to be experienced by doctors who live with multiple marginalisations.
“Our work gives a nuanced and holistic understanding of sexual harms, and demonstrates how silence prevents effective evidence-based management of sexual harassment.”
This open access book has contributing authors in locations from Austria to Zambia. It spans multiple languages, sociocultural contexts, and academic disciplines and offers unique globally contextualised perspectives, expert analysis and commentary.
The book prioritises the voices of target survivors, whose experience helps to inform an understanding of a complex problem and the associated animations. This perspective not only helps to break the silence, but offers potential solutions in discrete cultural contexts.
This work brings into one place expertise and experience from law, medical regulation, management, human rights, gender theory and therapy from across the world to understand how systems adapt, as well as revealing the systems that enable abuse to occur in large health care institutions.