At lunch today, I sat alone in the residents' lounge working on a note for a patient. An attending for another service came in, sat down, and started making conversation with me.
The conversation started off benign -- how many languages do I speak, what did I study in undergrad, what was my research about -- but when I mentioned my research abroad, he began telling stories of when he went backpacking in his twenties.
"Where I'm from, you have to be tall and handsome and probably blonde for chicks to want to sleep with you," he told me. "But there, you'd just talk to them and they'd fall into bed with you."
I found it harder to keep eye contact, disgustingly aware that I am a woman in her twenties, not unlike the ones in his story.
"I think I have some PTSD from seeing my friend, you know... because we shared a room together. And then we made a rule that we wouldn't do it anymore for the rest of the trip," he said. "But then we got to Rome, and we broke the rule. And then we got to Prague, and we broke the rule again..."
I started texting my partner from my open laptop, telling him what was happening. The door to the residents' lounge was locked, no one else knew we were there. The attending seemed harmless, but here he was talking behind closed doors about the sex he'd had with women my age, having spoken to me just once before. I was nervous.
"But that was twenty years and forty pounds ago. Of course, I'm married now. And I have two daughters -- do you want to see?"
I didn't want to move closer to him. But I was afraid of what he would think. He was scheduled to be my attending and evaluator the next week. I survived assault before and I've learned to protect myself; but for a moment, I considered my grades before my safety.
His phone rang, and after a minute, three of my classmates walked into the room. I texted my partner, "I've been rescued."
The conversation started off benign -- how many languages do I speak, what did I study in undergrad, what was my research about -- but when I mentioned my research abroad, he began telling stories of when he went backpacking in his twenties.
"Where I'm from, you have to be tall and handsome and probably blonde for chicks to want to sleep with you," he told me. "But there, you'd just talk to them and they'd fall into bed with you."
I found it harder to keep eye contact, disgustingly aware that I am a woman in her twenties, not unlike the ones in his story.
"I think I have some PTSD from seeing my friend, you know... because we shared a room together. And then we made a rule that we wouldn't do it anymore for the rest of the trip," he said. "But then we got to Rome, and we broke the rule. And then we got to Prague, and we broke the rule again..."
I started texting my partner from my open laptop, telling him what was happening. The door to the residents' lounge was locked, no one else knew we were there. The attending seemed harmless, but here he was talking behind closed doors about the sex he'd had with women my age, having spoken to me just once before. I was nervous.
"But that was twenty years and forty pounds ago. Of course, I'm married now. And I have two daughters -- do you want to see?"
I didn't want to move closer to him. But I was afraid of what he would think. He was scheduled to be my attending and evaluator the next week. I survived assault before and I've learned to protect myself; but for a moment, I considered my grades before my safety.
His phone rang, and after a minute, three of my classmates walked into the room. I texted my partner, "I've been rescued."
