Sexual abuse rife towards female GPs There's no chaperone in a doctor's office, so staff are isolated if inappropriate behaviour occurs. Requests for inappropriate examinations and improper exposure of body parts were the most common forms of sexual harassment, while 36 per cent of the women said they had been subjected to sexually charged remarks. We realised that very little was known about it, but it has seemingly been happening quite frequently. One hundred and eighty female practitioners from each state and territory responded to the survey, with 29 per cent of the doctors hailing from Victoria. Melbourne-based practitioner Dr Lorraine Baker said it was "disturbing" that those women had reported changing their working hours and behaviours as a result of offensive patient behaviour. During one incident, a male patient with a psychiatric disorder would routinely make vulgar and inappropriate comments to female patients, staff and doctors. "It sounds easy, but it's actually extremely difﬁcult to deal with," Dr Baker said. I'm an older female GP now, so I'm able to run my own practice in a style which makes me feel extremely safe. While fewer than 7 per cent of survey respondents said they had received training that covered sexual harassment by patients, Dr Baker said a variety of formal and informal programs were available, including a peer support hotline for doctors dealing with unmanageable circumstances. During practice hours, however, Dr Baker said smaller medical centres were reliant on whatever safety procedures their small budgets could muster. There's no chaperone in a doctor's ofﬁce, so staff are isolated if inappropriate behaviour occurs.