Writing about celebrities and their ‘diva’ behaviours is classic gossip column fodder but a UK specialist has taken issue with the use of the word in describing a toxic medical subculture.

Dr Katie Knight, a London paediatric emergency medicine specialist, says calling someone a ‘diva’ is shorthand for saying they are high maintenance, care little about others and need to be the centre of attention. 

So when a report commissioned by the UK’s General Medical Council (GMC) identifies the ‘diva doctor’ as one of five harmful sub-cultures at work in the National Health Service, it’s time for a rethink, says Dr Knight.

“’Diva’ is a gendered word — nearly always used in the context of describing a woman, or a woman’s behaviour,” she wrote in a blog for the BMJ.