OP and ward

Warning: There is discriminatory language on this page

Racism, sexism, queerophobia and other misanthropic attitudes are explicitly reproduced in the quotes sent to us.

Comment:

We are in the process and internal discourse about the dilemma between making visible and reproducing strongly misanthropic statements in the context of healthcare. We do not want to conceal what happens again and again. On the other hand, many of the examples are also difficult to bear and reading them can be retraumatizing.

We have not yet found a final solution. At the moment, we are still opting to make most of the submissions visible on this page (some of them censored) and we are trying to avoid reproduction even more explicitly on Instagram.

Please take care of yourselves and make a conscious decision to read the following pages. If strong feelings arise while reading, it may help to discuss your thoughts with friends. You are also very welcome to write us an email at sayit@mhh-asta.de, even if you would like to share your thoughts on the above dilemma. We will get back to you and are also very happy to talk to you in person.

You can find further offers of help here.

Collection of quotes

Experience of a female medical student in her practical year:
"During a blood sample, a patient squeezed my hand tightly and told me that he thought I was ugly but still wanted to rape me."

A senior physician in the intensive care unit of a teaching hospital, after learning that a patient known to the ward was being admitted from a closed psychiatric clinic: "I wish they would shoot her right in the emergency room." Another senior physician laughs. Both look around expectantly to see if anyone else joins in the laughter. At a later point, the senior physician in question comes into the physician's room for the handover with the following comment about his eight critically ill patients on ventilators: "I've got nothing but junk over there."

The senior physician said about a patient with a tumor: "We don't need to call in the palliative care service here. There is no palliative care in the Islamic culture." A critical question as to whether not all cultures know pain-relieving medicine was followed by a monologue about the justification for palliative medicine in England. The senior physician then concluded that countries further east are always less familiar with palliative medicine concepts than countries further west.

At the end of the day, a senior physician commented on a young German physician who was studying abroad and working on the ward: "Where he studied, they don't even learn how to take blood and place Viggos, we can't use them anyway. But at least it's better than all those barn owls. Nowadays, knowledge of German is an important reason for employment."

"I wear a headscarf. You can see straight away that I look different. What many people don't understand is that my headscarf is not an invitation to political/religious discussions with hurtful words. And no, the headscarf doesn't hinder my abilities or cloud my intelligence. No, just because I wear a headscarf doesn't mean I'm not intelligent enough to study medicine. Yes, of course I speak German well by my standards, after all I was born and raised here and went to a German school like every other one of my fellow students. No, I am not out of place here. No, I am not oppressed. No, the headscarf has nothing to do with my work and how well I do it. No, I am not out of place here. Yes, I am in the right place. Yes, I belong here. Yes, I can contribute to the good of the community. Regardless of whether colleagues, professors, physicians, nursing staff and even patients agree or disagree. I am a woman with a headscarf and I am very good at what I do and very proud of it. And, yes, I do wear a headscarf, but it's just a scarf and not a barrier, not an obstacle, not a warning to stay away from me. It stands for courage and self-determination and autonomy, and isn't that what medicine stands for?"

OP: There are only men at the table. One of them tells a 'funny' story: "Ohh, the last donor organ, there was something going on. The student who brought the organs described the vascular supply completely wrong. But I forgave her, she was pretty."

I, a PJ student, talk to the senior physician during the operation. He asked me what I wanted to do later. In response to my answer that I would like to learn a surgical specialty, he replied: "But I'd rather not do trauma surgery, it's not family-friendly".

Experience as a PJ student (white, she/her) at the operating table: "Gynecologists have only turned their hobby into their profession"

Experience as a PJ student (white, she/her) at the operating table: Prof. to OR nurse: "Where's my xxx? I need someone to warm my hands. I would never invite someone else into my room. Is she already there waiting for me?"

Experience as a PJ (white, she/her) at the operating table: comments about trans* women: Now they want to use women's toilets too. I wouldn't want some bearded guy to come in there when my daughter is in the bathroom, Trump is legal."

Experience as a PJ (white, she/her) at the operating table: "If I had a hairdressing salon, I would put a gay man in the foyer who greets everyone with his attitudes"

Experience as a PJ student (white, she/her) at the operating table: "The women at home always spend all the money we bring home anyway."

In the block internship in gastroduenoscopy: can't get through the Bauhin valve with the endoscope. The senior physician behind me says: "You probably haven't learned how to insert the endoscope yet."

I (female, medical student) was asked by the anesthesiologist during my clinical traineeship in a surgical specialty: "You don't really want to do that later as a career, do you? Surgeons work so much overtime, you won't be able to do that later on. As a woman, you have so many other commitments in addition to your job: Children, household, ..."

I (f.25) am doing a clinical traineeship in an emergency department with another trainee (m.21). We want to reposition a patient's elbow, which the physician in charge explains to us in the next room. He explains to the other trainee in detail how to do the reduction and simulates it on his arm. I keep asking questions in between so that I can also be shown the procedure. He answers briefly and continues talking to the other trainee. Finally, the physician asks me to take the patient to X-ray, takes the other trainee with him and leaves the room. I repeat that I am also a clinical trainee, but this is ignored.

During my PJ in a vascular surgery department, I had the same conversation with the senior consultant several times. After I answered "surgery" when asked what specialty I wanted to do after my studies, he repeatedly suggested that, as a woman, I should definitely rotate into internal medicine for a year first. This would make it easier for me to settle down later.

I, a PJ and interested in surgery, was in a trauma surgery Clinical Department. At the same time, there was another tall, broad-shouldered trainee (male) with me. When I was assigned to the operating schedule, I was initially assigned to the 2nd assistant for a hip operation. At least the OR schedule said "PJ trauma surgery". On the morning of the operation, the junior registrar intercepted me. He had spoken to the senior physician responsible for the OR schedule: he should now go into this OR with me, as the patient weighed over 100 kg and that would not be manageable for the PJ trainee. The name of the trainee was also added to the OR plan accordingly. Incidentally, I had already assisted on around 50 hips during my studies.

Surgical PJ: Inguinal hernia operation on an awake patient. After exposing the spermatic cord, the head physician asks me if I actually have a boyfriend, because then I could tell him tonight that I had held his "thing" in my hand today.

Me, a female student, taking blood at the bedside of an older male patient: "Wouldn't you rather sit in bed with me?"

Pregnant employee: After submitting a certificate of incapacity for work, my superiors immediately recommended that I take disability leave for the rest of my pregnancy.

Clinical traineeship: The husband of a patient (both in their late 70s), who was always ready to help me with dressing changes etc. and praised what a great physician I would become, grabbed my butt on my last day on the ward with the words "I dreamt about you last night, but I can't tell my wife in detail".

There was a discussion about sexism in the operating room break room. During this discussion, a physician replied: "Well, you can't do my job (surgery and operations as an attending physician) as a woman." When I replied that I had exactly the same training as him and was already assisting him during my studies, he simply said: "You can't do my job as a woman, the most you can do as a woman is work as a medical assistant in the surgery."

During a clinical traineeship, I was regularly addressed by a physician not by my name but as "sweetheart".

A female senior physician walking past a group of medical students and PJ students, two of whom were black: "Great, only the b***o jobs are left for me."

Assistant physician to me after I told him that I was writing to one of the nurses on WhatsApp - "Do you want to fuck her?"

A female GP consistently referred to her medical assistants as girls, even though they had of course been adult women for decades.

I, a medical student, try out a patient's fibromyalgia pressure points, which are on her buttocks. When I announce this directly beforehand, she says: "I like having my ass grabbed by such a tasty man."

In a small group of men, a senior physician says of an 18-year-old female patient who he has just performed a topless ultrasound on: "Well, she was quite good. You can't see anything with a bra on."

Patient to me and the Nursing staff member I'm pushing the bed with (neither of them blonde and blue-eyed), he has Turkish roots, I have a longer beard: "Are you from Syria?"

Relative asks me about an intern: "What's her name, she's hot, give me her number!"

Patient about nurse after she has left the room: "She's welcome to lie in bed with me."

Nurse about a patient who is admitted with an acute abdomen and is an asylum seeker: "Great, we all get to pay for that now."

Assistant physician about patient: "If she wasn't so fat, she wouldn't be here."

Male patients keep saying: "Smile, that looks much better on you". Do students hear this so often?

Clinical traineeship in a practice: I accompany one of the two physicians and ask a professional question. The patient (an older, white man) just rolls his eyes and says in a derogatory tone: "Oh girl."

As a student with a migrant background, I often had to listen to "What country did YOU come to us from?" during my nursing internship. The nurses stopped their conversations about "foreigners" as soon as I entered the room. I don't even want to mention the harassment from patients.

During a nursing internship: a relatively young patient said to me on discharge: "When I'm 80, I'd love to come back and be pampered by such young, pretty things"

During an internship, I had to listen to comments like "Oh, you're just a woman, so you don't know how to do it..." or "Typical woman, can't even get a grip..."

Clinical traineeship: I'm asked to go into the operating room. There I introduce myself by name. One of the two senior physicians I'm standing at the table with still consistently calls me "Frau Doktor". Later in the conversation, he asks me why only women still study medicine. In his opinion, this is due to the helper syndrome in most women. He also asks me why women always have to talk, even though I haven't said anything for about half an hour and don't speak without being asked. Later, he tells me that running the household and having children should actually be the fulfillment of my dreams. He dismissed my reply that I wanted to work as a physician and have children by saying that this was a mistake on my part and where Germany would end up if all the women stopped having children. In the end, he says to me that I can see for myself how fit you have to be for this job and how much strength you need, but he is overweight himself and during the conversation drops the fact that he has already had a heart attack and has an artificial heart valve. The other senior physician gives me non-verbal signals that he does not share his colleague's opinion, but hardly comments on what he says.

Two physicians (male) are talking in my presence about the nursing staff on their ward: "The little one, she's lovely. But you don't want to be married to her either."

"Nurse, come here!" - Over and over again, old male patients who don't get the idea that there are also female medical students/physicians.

Situation in the OR: The assistant asks the head physician if the head physician can close the surgical wound with me so that the assistant can write the surgical report. The head physician says to me: "There's no one I'd rather staple with than my assistant." A representative of a medical device company, who was also in the room, responded: "Should we leave you two alone to do the nailing?"

An OR nurse (male) to me (female, working student in the OR) when he was supposed to close my sterile gown: "Well, can I do your laundry?"

Situation during clinical traineeship. Patient is being prepared for a sterile procedure, the physician asks a female Nursing student for help: "Could you come here a minute?". As the nurse approaches the patient, the patient says, looking at her suggestively: "Hm, let's see if I don't come first".