#METOO Is Reshaping Medicine – How Will the System Adapt?

#METOO Is Reshaping Medicine – How Will the System Adapt? Sarah J. Diekman, MD, MS, L-2 student, Florida A&M University College of Law, Orlando, FL; Email sarah1.diekman@famu.edu Michael S. Sinha, MD, JD, MPH, Research Fellow, Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Sciences, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Email michael_sinha@hms.harvard.edu The #MeToo movement has affected nearly every industry in the United States and the graduate medical education field is no exception. Recent studies show that approximately fifty percent of medical students have experienced sexual harassment. During Match interviews, female students are routinely asked about family planning. In residency, competency evaluations have been shown to be biased against women. As residents and fellows, young doctors experience sexual harassment and assault by supervisors and patients alike. Once training is complete, female attendings experience decreased pay, decreased rates of promotion and award recognition, and continued sexual harassment. The last two years have seen several high-profile cases of sexual harassment and abuse of power in medicine and science. The Michigan State University case resulted in the criminal prosecution of the medical school’s dean and a $500-million settlement. Given multiple new allegations of sexual harassment in the medical and science fields, it can be expected that there is more litigation to come. Claims based on sex discrimination are litigated under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) and Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments (Title IX). In general, Title VII cover employment discrimination and Title IX covers discrimination in education. Complications arise in the medical field because there is no clear path of recourse for medical students, physicians-in-training, and physicians. For instance, what happens when an attending physician experiencing an actionable violation is employed by both a Title IX institution (a medical school) and a Title VII institution (a hospital)? Residents also present a complication because their position shares features of a student and an employee. Their precarious position, evidenced by a federal court’s dismissal in 2004 of antitrust allegations affecting physicians-in-training (forced participation, long hours, low 2020 American College of Legal Medicine JOURNAL OF LEGAL MEDICINE 2020, VOL. 40, NO. S1, 6–7 https://doi.org/10.1080/01947648.2020.1715726 wages), has tremendous implications when it comes to employee rights related to allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace. This poster will further explore those important issues while offering a path forward for addressing #MeToo in medicine. (Additional references will be on the poster.) JOURNAL OF LEGAL MEDICINE 7