According to CBS News, an anonymous essay published on Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine has patients everywhere fearful.

Two experiences were included under the title “Our Family Secret”, as the author describes situations when physicians were misogynistic toward their patients, with grave undertones of sexual assault.

“If the essay gives just one physician the courage to act like the anesthesiologist in this story, then it will be well worth publishing”, the editors said.

The author found out about the first story while teaching at the medical school. He asked this question: “Do any of you have someone to forgive from your clinical experiences? Did anything ever happen that you need to forgive, or perhaps, can’t forgive?” This happened while the patients had been under the influence of anesthetic drugs and doctors chose to ignore their oath, as reported by the Weekly Observer. He explained that while a female patient who was there for a vaginal hysterectomy was under general anesthesia, the surgeon looked at the young student after prepping the vaginal area of the patient and uttered the words “I bet she’s enjoying this”. Shocked and uncertain, the student played along and laughed.

The author then told his own story, which was quite similar to the student’s.

In the incident, he was helping the doctor to deliver a baby girl when the mother began to bleed profusely, so he called upon the obstetrician, Dr. Canby for assistance.

One of the students in the class spoke up and said that he once witnessed misconduct and regretted not doing anything about at the time. In June, a Fairfax County, Virginia, jury ordered an anesthesiologist and her practice to pay a patient $500,000 after the doctor mocked and insulted the patient during a colonoscopy. He placed his hand inside the woman’s vagina, and pressed his fist against her uterus. This procedure saved her life, but what happened next is sickening.

But once the bleeding stopped, the doctor said a phrase along the lines of “Atta girl”. That’s what I like. While inserting his hands into the uterus the doctor made an improper remark and said that’s what he likes – a nice and tight uterus.

He then recounted something even more horrifying: The doctor raised his free hand in the air and started singing “La Cucaracha”, shuffling so it looked like he was dancing. He said that he ended up laughing and joining in on the doctor’s disrespectful dance until the anesthesiologist in the room yelled “knock it off” and swore at them.

The essay is short in length, but powerful in its message: This type of inappropriate behavior happens and needs to be addressed by the medical community. “We all agreed that the piece was disgusting and scandalous and could damage the profession’s reputation”, the editors, including Laine, wrote in an editorial accompanying the piece. “Others believed that it was precisely why we should publish it”.

No matter how hard it is to stomach some stories, that doesn’t make them less real.

The editors of the medical journal were confused as to whether to publish it or not. “We didn’t want the journal to stuff this behavior under the rug”. In the second story he was one of the viewers who didn’t speak up against the doctor.

The discussion was so impassioned and opinions so disparate that we needed a “time-out”.

The team mentioned their point of view, regarding the incidents described in the essay.