When the BJS report was first published, the staggering figures made headlines, along with calls for the medical industry to more effectively regulate what has seemingly become an all too easy place for women to be mistreated. But it took less than 24 hours for Peter Hilton, a retired anaesthetist, to write into the Times (the paper that reported the results of the investigation) to complain that today’s “snowflake generation” of young female doctors “should toughen up”.

For Liz O’Riordan, who worked as the only female surgeon in her south Wales trust when she joined 20 years ago, that letter has only added to the anger she has felt since the report came out. The profession is rife with powerful men who abuse their positions, she says; the hours are long, women are few and trusts often prioritise retaining senior male consultants over junior female staff. “I’m glad they published [the letter] because it shows that there are so many men who think this is completely acceptable.”

O’Riordan has been horrified, too, that in the wake of the BJS report, instead of empathy, there have been recriminations: being told on one radio programme that female surgeons are “educated, intelligent women – why on earth do we let these men get away with it?” She explains that this “victim-blaming” – as well as failing to understand that “you can’t do anything about it when there’s a patient on the operating table” – only reinforces how difficult the challenges facing female surgeons are.

Last week, Cuming wrote that the report’s researchers are calling for “widespread training for all” and for a “national implementation panel to be set up to oversee action on our recommendations”. She noted, too, that there were significantly more women than men who said they had witnessed sexual harassment and assault; proof that the requisite groups are “living in different realities. This gap in perception implies that there is work to do.” Campaigners’ suggestions have included an anonymous reporting line, hiring trained, independent investigators to take on such cases, more sexual harassment-specific policies and reprimanding trusts for failure to stick to them.

Louisa Caldwell* agrees. She dropped out of surgical training after being sexually assaulted by a colleague, and moved into general practice, which she says is without “the bravado and the lad culture that’s pervasive within surgery”. But she has come to realise every area of healthcare is riven with “institutionalised misogyny”. Caldwell, 34, is part of the Surviving in Scrubs network, where women who have found themselves objectified or assaulted in the medical profession trade grim stories.

The report was “quite triggering, bringing back memories and reflecting on past trauma” for Caldwell, but it has also fostered a sense of community in dreadful circumstances. “[There was a] sense of relief and validation that it’s not just you on your own struggling with it,” she says. “There are so many of us that have been through this…. we need to really, really foster that going forward.”

However, she knows that a Hollywood-style MeToo reckoning is unlikely; that maintaining momentum – and unpicking the complex NHS structures that have enabled this deep imbalance – has not yet been cracked. “I think things are gradually changing,” she says, “but it’s incredibly slow.” Things will only begin to shift when there is institutional change, Mhairi adds. “We need a concerted effort to take these complaints seriously.”

*Names have been changed

“I'm a doctor who was sexually assaulted at work – trying to report it was death by a thousand cuts”