Medical training is ‘too male and stale’, with female trainees warned not to wear lipstick and dissuaded from surgical careers because of a conflict with child-raising, say UK students.

Researchers from Hull York Medical School in York conducted individual interviews with 32 students (mean age 22 and 27 female), and nine educators at five medical schools to discover how they perceived gender bias within medical education.

Their responses were rife with comments about being dissuaded from a career in surgery if they planned to have kids.

One commented: “People, females in our year, and myself, want to be a surgeon. And when we’re asked ‘what do you want to do?’… by male consultants… they say, ‘no, you shouldn’t, you should think about family’.”