By Jeremy Laurence
The medical profession is in danger of losing its power and influence because too many women are scaling its ranks, according to the female head of Britain's most influential royal medical college.
The astonishing warning was made by Professor Carol Black, president of the Royal College of Physicians and only the second woman to hold the post in the college's 500-year history.
Medicine has a reputation as a chauvinistic profession led by powerful male consultants with giant egos.
But it is changing rapidly.
Over 60 percent of new doctors coming out of medical school are women and they already dominate the lower echelons of the profession.
In less than a decade women doctors will outnumber men, Black said in an interview with the Independent.
While most observers have seen this as a positive trend, leading to a more caring, humane style of medicine, Black is the first female leader of any profession to suggest that the increased involvement of women has reached a point where it may be damaging.
Black said: "We are feminising medicine."
"It has been a profession dominated by white Caucasian males."
"What are we going to have to do to ensure it retains its influence?"
"Years ago teaching was a male-dominated profession - and look what happened to teaching."
"I don't think they feel they are a powerful profession any more. The same goes for nursing," said Black.
Although there was no question about the competence or skills of women doctors - and many patients preferred being looked after by a woman - what was at stake was the status of the profession, she said.
"In Russia medicine is an almost entirely female profession. They are paid less and they are almost ignored by government. They have lost influence as a body that had competency, skills and a professional ethic. They have become just another part of the workforce. It is a case of downgrading professionalism."
Black said she had spent two years "banging on doors" trying to persuade people to listen to her concerns. High level meetings with senior government figures had now taken place.
"At last people are taking this seriously. I have actually taken it to the top," she said.
The Royal College of Physicians is considered to be the most influential of the doctors' colleges and is responsible for standard-setting and monitoring the quality of education in the specialties of medicine.
Her comments came as the debate about work-life balance and women's role had intensified.
Black, who is professor of rheumatology at the Royal Free Hospital, London, said the issue was highly sensitive and it was only because she was a woman that she could raise it.
The downgrading of medicine's professional status was a serious threat and action was needed now to correct the imbalance of the sexes to prevent it becoming a reality, she said.
"I would like to see equal numbers of male and female doctors. I think it makes for a more natural balance," she said.
Women doctors were equal to or better than their male colleagues in ability, but their need to meet family commitments made it more difficult for them to rise to the top of the profession, said Black.