Sexual Harassment in Ophthalmology
Sexual harassment (SH) is highly prevalent among women in ophthalmology and has been shown to significantly impact victims’ work satisfaction, professional advancement, and mental health. Despite the severity of workplace incidents and their effects, SH often goes unreported for a variety of reasons. There are a number of strategies that have been shown to change workplace culture to prevent SH and mitigate its effects. Bystander interventions and victim response include the 5 “D’s”: Direct intervention, Distraction, Debriefing, Documentation, and Delegation. Each of these are explored in detail in this chapter. Finally, the fear of false accusations of SH can prevent men from mentoring women. For this reason and others, women should engage men in discussion of SH in order to achieve maximum impact. Both men and women must play an active role in advocating for SH prevention.
