14 Modern Healthcare | August 12, 2019
cancer center City of Hope, said she sent out a mass email
to staff soon after the hashtag began gaining ground saying
the institution supported the movement.
Although blatant acts of sexual harassment or gender
discrimination may have abated modestly, microaggres-
sions against women or minority populations are still a
problem, said Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief healthcare offi cer at
the Association of American Medical Colleges.
“It’s not just when someone is forcing you to engage in an
activity you don’t want to be involved in,” she said. “Th ere
can be harassment when you’re not mentored or given op-
portunities to progress.”
In fact, Modern Healthcare’s survey found nearly 19%
of participants said promotions at their organizations are
based on favoritism instead of merit. One respondent said
she missed out on opportunities for career advancement
because networking or client events included only men.
“As the years go on, it’s much more subtle, but continues,”
she added.
Th e AAMC held a forum for academic medical center
leaders in June about workplace harassment. Orlowski said
the meeting focused on raising awareness about behaviors
that may be hard to detect as exclusionary.
Since then, the AAMC board has made a commitment
to work with its members on fi xing the problem. So far, it
has off ered academic medical centers a worksheet with
employee survey questions that are targeted at specifi c in-
stances of inappropriate behavior so the organization can
get a better sense of problems.
“Victims of harassment often will not defi ne it as such
when asked,” Orlowski said.
Although because issues of harassment and discrimina-
tion have stayed under the radar for so long, the industry
doesn’t yet have a good understanding of interventions
that work, Johnson at the University of Michigan said.
“We don’t have the evidence of what is the best way to
change culture,” Johnson said. “CEOs and nurse manag-
ers, t hey need to use t hei r best judg ment a nd fi gure out how
they are going to do this.”
Many leaders make the mistake of trying to solve the
problem with “one-off ” solutions, he said. For instance,
sexual harassment training isn’t eff ective when only web-
based or done just once a year. Instead, it has to be ongoing
and part of a “broader culture change,” he said.
WellStar makes its priorities around harassment and dis-
crimination clear from the get-go, which Saunders said has
helped improve the culture.
When WellStar is looking for new hires, the system’s“Even though we are working on
that implicit bias, it’s just there
unless you are constantly as a
team saying well, ‘Did we miss
something? How do we think
about this diff erent?’ ”
Dr. Laura Forese
Chief operating offi cer
New York-Presbyterian“I have been sexually harassed by a
superior physician. I did not turn him
in due to fear of retaliation.”
Women Leaders in Healthcare Gender Equity Initiative survey respondent