The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (Missouri) recently upheld the right of a female resident physician to sue the hospital where she worked for sexual harassment, because of conduct directed at her by a supervising staff physician.

   The Circuit Court overturned a lower court which in error had thrown out the suit. The Circuit Court stated as a broad generality that conduct by a male supervisor toward a female employee does not have to be explicitly sexual in nature to constitute unlawful sexual harassment.

  Sexual harassment is fundamentally a form of gender discrimination. Derogatory comments, hostility and intimidation directed at women, but not at men, are discriminatory, and a form of sexual harassment. In this case, according to the court, the physician in question had a practice of referring to male residents and addressing them with the title "Doctor" and their last names, while female physicians were referred to an addressed by their first names. This was a signal the physician did not consider women as deserving as men of full professional recognition.

   The physician asked the female resident in front of others why she had chosen a career in medicine rather than in nursing, or getting married and staying home with the children as another physician’s wife was doing.

   The female resident was hospitalized twice, allegedly as a result of stress from her job situation. The court pointed out, however, that the right to sue for sexual harassment on the job is not dependent upon the victim having to show a direct cause-and-effect link between the harassment and a diagnosable mental or physical injury.