Psychiatric Illness in Obstetrics Gynecology

There was that upsetting news in the newspapers sometime ago about resident doctors in another institute revolting against a professor. All revolters were women and amongst a host of allegations was one on sexual harassment. It seems they had appealed to the human rights commission too. The truth of the matter is not known to me. But it brought to mind painful memories of a time now long gone. Early eighties was not a time when people were aware of human rights and measures to control sexual harassment at workplace. We just believed everything was as it had been in our upbringing. Perhaps there would be some bad sheep, but not where we were. I must have been quite naïve. (Recently one of my told me I was very naïve. How she understood this is beyond me, because I thought I put up a very professional and shrewd appearance. I think I did not change at all over years.) We had this Associate Professor, who is now retired, but still around somewhere. She must have been 12 years senior to me. She seemed to be like everyone else, until one day she changed my opinion. I was assisting my boss for some abdominal operation. There was another assistant by my side. We were both reasonably tall and it would be difficult for anyone to see over our shoulders. We had wooden platforms for short people to stand on and see over the shoulders of the assistants. This Associate Professor came into our OT and stood on one such platform behind me and leaned forward to peep into the operative field. I belonged to a culture where men didn’t touch women and women didn’t touch men freely, unless they are very closely related. I was shocked when she put her front against my back, without even a hand in between. I did not know what to do. She was Associate Professor while I was a mere resident doctor. I dared not tell her that I would move away so that she could see better. She moved away after a couple of minutes and I went back to assisting. I was sitting at my desk that evening. My batch mate and neighboring resident noticed my pensive mood and asked me what the matter was. I told him. He started laughing. I asked him what the matter was. He said she was known to do that regularly. He further said her husband used to do that or more to women residents in another institute, and that it must be some psychiatric illness in the family. I had studied psychiatry as an undergraduate student, but had not heard of such a familial illness that affected husband and wife who were not blood relatives.