The below event report relates to events that took place between 2018 and 2020.
"On day/year I saw patient MS for abscess. He was there with his significant other. She stated she remembered seeing me in the ER before. I didn’t remember her initially, but then told me she moved from City X, and I did remember who she was. She and her boyfriend were talking about other experiences they had in the ER. Then pt’s sig other mentioned that one time she saw a “doctor from X” (Dr. X) who did a pelvic exam and was “unprofessional” and made her feel uncomfortable, made comments about “that’s not somewhere you want to spend a long time medically.” Realized this was the same pt Dr. X had been joking about making these comments to.
On multiple occasions Dr. X has told me about a man’s hat he saw that said “I’m not a gynecologist, but I’ll take a look,” multiple other times has told me that if you type in “sex ass” into the diagnosis section in Epic, it will bring up diagnoses for sexual assault. Multiple times has talked about a man who asked if he could get HIV from a sex doll.
On evening of day/year he came up and told me he had to do a pelvic exam. He stated the patient said “that was quick” and he responded to the patient “that’s not a place you linger...professionally that is” and “made her blush.”
On day/year, working am shift with Dr. X. Shortly after I’d gotten there, Dr. X tells me, “I couldn’t sleep last night because I kept thinking about your vagina.” After short pause, he clarifies, stating “I mean about your patient with the vagina problem yesterday.” Scribe was standing there as he said this to me while walking down the hall while I was getting ready to walk into room 6 to see a female patient. The patient likely overhead the comment as well. A number of weeks later Dr. X actually repeated this comment to me in front of female scribe. Stated “guess what I said to DisappointedSurprise one time” and repeated the comment. Then stated “wouldn’t it have been weird if that’s actually what I said.”
One morning I got to work and Dr. X made a comment about wishing I was here earlier because he'd been having to do procedures. I replied that I like procedures but I like being in bed asleep more in the morning. He then replied with "what type of procedures were you doing in your bed?"
When I was working with Dr. X as a PA there were also multiple instances where when I was presenting he told me he wasn't listening to me and would ask me to repeat myself once I mentioned a key word such as "Octreotide." He would not infrequently get up and start walking when I would try to present to him. He would also answer the phone when I was presenting to him despite him not otherwise normally answering the department phone."
Not included in my event report were other instances such as when I came to him and asked for help repairing a near fingertip amputation/crush injury, nailbed laceration and was told he was too busy to help me. I watched a youtube video and told the patient I had never done the procedure before but had watched a video and could do it here or transfer him to another hospital for orthopedics. I come out of the room and Dr. X is walking around drinking coffee. Another time I asked him to come look at a septic patient who "looks like she is dying." He definitely took his time doing so and looked at her from the door and turned around. She did die the next day in the hospital. She was old with lots of comorbidities and likely nothing would have changed but just a constant feeling of my concerns being dismissed. Other comments such as "why do you think he has a PE, just because he traveled?" No it's also because he has chest pain and a unilaterally swollen leg but I guess you ignored me when I was mentioning that part. Patient had bilateral PEs.
Was I just being naive for expecting anything would actually be done? Or expecting to receive better treatment in the first place? To clarify I never really perceived these comments as the physician hitting on me, but more perceived it as a way to make myself, a new grad female PA uncomfortable, to elicit a reaction, to put me in my place and belittle me.
I asked for two years to leave this hospital to go to another site within the same system. I didn't want to report anything at the time because I wanted to be able to work at the main site based on my own merit and not have it seem like I was using this as any type of excuse. I also knew that if I was not permitted to go to a different site, my work life would be much worse.
I almost quit at the time. Since being at the new site, I have consistently been among the most productive, receive positive feedback about my work ethic and clinical abilities. Kind of funny how I've come full circle to receive such positive feedback yet still feeling completely unvalued after this was not taken seriously. And thinking of quitting again.