WOMEN doctors are earning 30 per cent on average less than their male colleagues and still face “hostility and stereotyping” if they try to enter male-dominated medical specialities.

Despite female medical students having outnumbered men for decades and there are now nearly as many female medics and male medics working in the UK health service – up from fewer than a fifth when the NHS was formed in 1948 – the gender pay gap still looms large.

And it cannot be fully explained by factors such as part-time working, career breaks and maternity leave.

Delegates at BMA Scotland’s first ever ‘Women in Medicine’ conference, in Stirling, also heard that having children had “no impact” on male doctors’ careers, but “dramatically” affected female medics’ career and earnings.

Sally Brett, the head of equality, inclusion and culture for the BMA – the trade union for doctors – said that the ratio of male to female doctors in the NHS is now 53 to 47 per cent.

However, the median hourly earnings of female doctors in the NHS is 30 per cent lower than their male counterparts, compared to a 10 per cent gap between men and women in the legal profession.

She said: “We know that this partly reflects different career choices, taking career breaks, the unequal impact of caring responsibilities for children and elderly parents, and women’s comparatively recent entry to the profession.

“Sometimes you’ll hear people say ‘well, when you compare women doctors who have worked full time with male doctors who have worked full time, there’s really no difference’ – but that does not really get across the fact that women’s choices are more constrained than men.

“And when you take away part-time working, career breaks, and caring responsibilities, in fact you still find that 40 per cent of the gender pay gap in medicine is unexplained. A lot of people think that reflects discrimination going on.”

Only 34 per cent of hospital consultants and 11 per cent of surgeons are female. The majority of GP partners are also male, despite women now outnumbering men in general practice.

Ms Brett said women enter male-dominated medical specialisms faced “hostility and stereotyping” and were “more likely to respond to by being cautious and focused on avoiding failure”.

“That’s why there is such a need for female role models and mentors,” she added.

Ms Brett said the BMA's research had found that doctors working less than full-time – predominantly women – felt they were “no longer seen as a proper doctor”. She said: “They are ‘not part of the team’, so they are not considered for the same promotions or training.”

While progress has been made in narrowing the pay gap between men and women doctors at the start of their careers, Ms Brett said the picture “still changes dramatically once children start coming along” – but only for female medics.

She said: “Women are more likely to have changed their career course in the first 10 years from being a junior doctor. The number of children they have is a strong predictor of female junior doctors’ career behaviour - such as working overseas, or their specialty choices. However, we’ve found that the number of children a man has has no impact on male doctors’ career behaviour.”

Ms Brett said the gender pay gap was exacerbated by bonuses – only 15 per cent of consultants in Scotland in receipt of a distinction award worth £25-75,000 annually on top of their NHS salary are women – and the “extremely low” uptake of parental leave by men to share childcare.

Ms Brett, previously an equal pay expert for the TUC, also stressed that research has shown that while mothers generally earn less than childless women in the same profession, men enjoy a “fatherhood bonus” which sees men with children earn more on average than male colleagues without children.

She said: “When men become fathers they are seen as more reliable; when women become mothers are seen as more erratic, less reliable.”