NHRC recommends Seoul National University chancellor and SNUH president to undertake measures for the prevention of gender discrimination
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a recommendation to Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) urology professor, Professor Lee, to receive special human rights training under the auspices of the NHRC. The recommendation follows a February 2003 complaint filed by Seoul National University Hospital Workers’ Union against Professor Lee and charged that Lee’s verbal sexual harassment of nurses during surgery violated the nurses’ personal rights.
The NHRC also issued recommendations to the chancellor of Seoul National University and the SNUH president because both are responsible for supervising and overseeing Professor Lee even though neither chancellor nor president were the first-hand offenders in this human rights violation case. The Commission recommended that the chancellor and president: implement comprehensive training on the prevention of sexual harassment, formulate a plan to prevent gender discrimination and recurrence of human rights violations in the future, and lay in place a system capable of carrying out fair investigation and case handling if incidents of sexual harassment or sexual violence do arise.
The Seoul National University Hospital Workers’ Union petition charged that during the 9 am surgery on 7 February 2003, Professor Lee (then both medical school professor and practicing urology surgeon) turned to the new female nurse who had applied an inadequate amount of jelly to his surgical sleeve and said, “you virgins can never get enough lubrication going.” When another female nurse tried to reign in his insinuating comments, Lee turned to her and said, “then put some (vaginal secretions) out yourself, since at least you can get it real wet.” During another surgery that same day, Professor Lee screamed at an assisting nurse, “new nurses shouldn’t be allowed in the operating rooms of top-surgeons” for mistakenly flipping the power switch, instead of lowering the pressure, of an operating-room machine that had automatically reset itself when the power was cut, and after the surgery was completed, Lee turned to the nurse and smacked her across the head with his hand still bloody from surgery.
Besides the events of that particular day, charged the union, Professor Lee had regularly subjected assisting female nurses to verbal sexual harassment, and often turned to female nurses during surgeries that exposed male patients’ genitals to say, “you want to get laid right now, by a Song-i mushroom (metaphor for an erect phallus) don’t you,” and even in everyday conversation continually referred to nurses as “just a mere, trifling nurse,” thereby denigrating nurses’ occupational level, humiliating (female) nurses, and violating personal rights.
On the other hand, over the course of the NHRC investigation, Professor Lee testified differently as to his comments during the February 7 surgery. Regarding the insinuations about the state of assisting nurses’ vaginal fluids, Lee stated, “By my comments I meant saliva, not vaginal fluids, and I was simply expressing, through a joke, my dissatisfaction with the nurse’s lack of preparation.” As to the charge of physically assaulting the nurse with his bloody hand, Lee stated, “during the course of the surgery, her head was blocking my view of the monitor so for just a fraction of a second, I pushed her head aside.”
Because the union and Professor Lee’s account of the incident differed, the NHRC investigation also examined the testimony of the victims, first-hand eyewitnesses and other witnesses and weighed the specific facts of the case, including: the president of SNUH had made a formal apology with relation to this incident, Professor Lee had also issued an apology to the female nurses, Lee’s concurrent appointments as both medical school professor and SNUH surgeon were changed to reflect revocation of this SNUH position after the incident, and last, the fact that Seoul National University had applied a punitive wage cut to Professor Lee’s salary as a disciplinary measure. After a comprehensive evaluation of all the details and facts of the case, the NHRC investigation concluded that Professor Lee had indeed violated personal rights and that his behavior constituted sexual harassment (discrimination against women).
The investigation also examined charges that Professor Lee regularly sexually harassed female nurses verbally and that he frequently denigrated his female, nurse colleagues. Regarding these further charges, the NHRC investigation discovered that Professor Lee, under the pretext of making the operating room atmosphere “more relaxed,” had indeed made many comments that subject female nurses to discomfort and humiliation, and that Lee had, in order to be “closer” to the nurses, dropped his particles—in the Korean language, particles indicate a formal relationship and respectful attitude—when speaking to nurses and also made inappropriate “jokes” that humiliated nurses. In relation to the further charges, the investigation concluded that Professor Lee’s conduct constituted a violation of the female nurses’ personal rights.
