Table 5.

Answers to Question 15: Please List Any Other Microaggressions in Plastic Surgery That You Have Experienced or Witnessed during Your Residency/Fellowship That Were Not Included in This Survey

“Inappropriate comments potentially alluding to a female coresident’s sexuality (‘you really like to touch things’)”

“It was discussed at performance evaluation that breastfeeding was ‘taking too long’ and it was implied that I was ‘taking advantage’ of breastfeeding to get out of work”

“I was told during performance evaluation that faculty didn’t think I ‘appeared engaged’ and that it would be better if I smiled more”

“I was repeatedly told that my commitment to my career was in question by many faculty after having multiple children during residency”

“I am routinely disrespected by nurses and occasionally PAs because of my gender and this results in significant burnout”

“I heard comments from attendings saying, ‘I thought she was going to be docile’ of a woman surgeon with an ethnic background”

“Attendings talking about female residents and medical students and their weaknesses to male residents and support staff, and sometimes publicly in front of nurses and other medical students”

“A female attending removing instruments from female residents’ hands and then letting male residents do the entire operation without teaching the female residents”

“As a male trainee (and father of 3), I was repeatedly expected to ‘suck it up’ and take multiple days of specialty call in a row (up to 6 consecutive days of hand, face on at least 7 occasions over the past 2 years) to cover NON-maternity vacation for my female junior resident. However, this was not reciprocated and she was restricted to 2–3 days consecutive call only in dire circumstance. She was also not expected to payback her missed calls. I had to move my time off requests to prevent her from having consecutive call days and was also allotted less total vacation days with more stringent criteria applied to my time-off. Furthermore, I was not authorized post-call days, but my female colleague was on several occasions”

“Being hit on by patients and others in the work place”

“Cafeteria provides free lunch to doctors. The male second year resident regularly was NOT charged for lunch even while I was charged every time”

“Comments about looking too young to be a doctor”

“Copious racial micro-aggressions. Sometimes added on top of gender micro-aggressions”

“Demeaning comments made towards residents by support staff regarding level of training or efficiency”

“Favoritism, comparison between residents and prior residents”

“Female staff are awful to female surgical trainees and have been the primary source of all types of aggression in my training, consistently questioning orders and requests in ORs, consistently ignoring requests for instruments during surgery, and consistently complaining to their supervisors about my behavior more so than they behave towards male surgical trainees or attendings. Female attendings have been more critical than male attendings. Male staff and attendings have done this minimally in comparison in my experience”

“I had my lunch choices questioned/mocked ‘if I really needed that,’ and I’m a normal BMI. Told a patient’s family I was huge. I witnessed a Jewish person’s yarmulke being mocked by an attending and several ‘jokes’ among those lines”

“Hard to remember at this time but I know my female co-residents often get sexually harassed, get mistaken as a nurse, they are not called doctors by patients or by staff-surgeons sometimes. Sometimes people were aggressive to me because they were upset in their own lives or questioned my technique due to lack of skill or got frustrated if I wasn’t assisting well but it was not due to my gender”

“I am a white male. None noted towards me. My program is predominantly female and I note the presence of a majority of these microaggressions, particularly from female attendings and nurses. The resources provided for pregnant and breastfeeding female residents is laughable”

“I was disciplined for a patient care issue, even though protocol was followed. However, a male resident who failed to follow protocol in this same patient care, went undisciplined. Additionally, new academic protocols were strictly implemented in my case, whereas they were not implemented at all for male residents”

“I was told in one of the ORs that is typically an ortho room that if I wanted my size gloves (6) I would need to go and get them myself because they didn’t keep it in the room. The OR staff pulled a 6.5 instead, which I only found out about when I scrubbed in. My options were to operate in too large gloves or scrub out and get my own, the circular wasn’t willing to do it because ‘that’s what all the small women Ortho residents do.’ I am not an ortho resident, and it isn’t okay that they treat their women this way on a daily basis”

“Microaggressions against Asians. Saying I look like samurai then making Bruce Lee sounds”

“Operating room interactions with OR staff (circulator/scrub nurses—often other females) were negative based on my gender. Male attending surgeon directly made jokes about pregnant residents to me”

“Pressure to conform to other’s standards or viewpoints”

“Residents being demeaning due to appearance, others in program not being helpful as they would to other colleagues, faculty making comments about my appearance including very hurtful ones that I felt helpless to speak on due to retaliation, too many to list. Thanks for the work you are doing, it is much needed in our field”

“Snarky comments that are unnecessary about men in general from female attendings”

“Towards my race”