AMA calls out discrimination of female doctors as unacceptable
In an interview with ABC Radio in July, AMA President Dr Michael Gannon came out strongly against female doctors being asked in job interviews about their future plans to have children and stated that hospitals are not entitled to ask about future family plans.
“It's the wrong thing to do; it's against the law. Falling pregnant is a completely normal thing to do, it's part of female physiology, and the jurisdictions who run public hospitals, those private hospitals who employ people, are simply not allowed to ask these questions,” Dr Gannon said.
“This is not new, and it's happening here in Western Australia and it's happening nationwide, and it's often happened. And sadly, I have to say as well, it's not just the hospitals; these kind of questions get asked by the learned Colleges in their interviews for specialist training as well. Now, some of them have modernised; they've got very set questions that get asked in the interviews now to try to avoid any allegations of any form of discrimination. But sadly, from time to time we still hear these questions come out. Sometimes the discrimination against women is overt, sometimes it's a bit more covert.
“The AMA believes in a zero tolerance attitude to any form of bullying, any form of harassment, and this is just one example of it.
“We need to recognise that not only are women a significant part of the medical workforce, they're now a majority of the medical workforce, and we want their talents available.”
