A Glasgow academic has co-written a new book examining why incidents of sexual harassment and abuse are so high in the medical community worldwide, and looking for potential solutions so that doctors – particularly those in training and early in their careers – can enjoy safe learning and workplaces.

Professor Rosalind Searle of the University of Glasgow's Adam Smith Business School says one third of junior doctors have experienced sexual harassment within their healthcare system, be it in Britain or elsewhere in the world.

It comes a month after the BMA published the findings of a survey of nearly 1000 medical students in which two in five female respondents reported that they'd been targets of sexual harassment or sexual assault University, including rape, at medical schools and clinical placements – both at the hands of their peers and right through to senior doctors.

Professor Searle and counterparts from the University of Dundee shared findings earlier this year that medical trainees are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and are often shut down or silenced when they report incidents.

NHS Education for Scotland revealed that it is developing incident reporting mechanisms as part of a programme to engage and support healthcare staff.

Professor Searle is also working with the NHS in England and UK health and social care regulators to examine workplace interventions to prevent incidents of sexual harassment where doctors are both perpetrators and victims.

"Sexual harms between doctors is a complex problem, but not unsolvable,” she said.

"This is an institutional issue. Medicine is a patriarch, where your means to progress within your career depends on somebody else endorsing you. That therefore allows people to exploit others unnecessarily, promote those that favour them and shut out people that challenge their behaviours.

"Harassment is more common when the target is still in training, and it is more likely to be experienced by doctors who live with multiple marginalisations.

"Our work gives a nuanced and holistic understanding of sexual harms, and demonstrates how silence prevents effective evidence-based management of sexual harassment."

The book Sexual harassment between doctors: Healing medical cultures around the world has been co-authored by Professor Louise Stone from Australian National University.

The book includes contributions from people living in many different countries, cultures and working in different academic disciplines.

Professor Stone added:

"We wanted to bring the insights of multiple disciplines and multiple contexts into one space so those of us involved in the complex problem of sexual abuse in medicine could examine the problem from multiple perspectives. We sincerely believe that it is only by engaging with the complexity of the problem that contextually appropriate solutions can be found across the world."

Read more: NHS is working to address “unacceptable” abuse; Medical trainee abuse reports ‘shut down and silenced’; NHS Scotland urged to act on stalking; “Watershed moment” for healthcare sexual misconduct

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