Unprecedented verdict sends doctor to jail over sexual misconduct

After two years of continuous victimization by a surgeon from the emergency services in a town in southern Poland, five women have taken him to court accusing him of sexual harassment. They have just won the case and the surgeon was sentenced to one year and four months in prison. This is an unprecedented verdict in the medical profession. According to one of the victims, he invited nurses and cleaners to his office and touched them in their private parts. "When they resisted he took out his aggression on patients and his family. He was a doctor, a director, and so in a position of authority over our husbands who worked in the emergency center as drivers. He hinted that something bad would happen to us and our families if we resisted. We felt insecure and feared that we, and our husbands could loose our jobs," one victim said. During the trial the surgeon denied the accusations, admitting that only once he had touched one nurse's breasts. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p.6)