Women's identification with their occupation and their sense of career progression can be undermined by working in male-dominated places, according to new research.

Presented at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology in Brighton, the study sought to draw conclusions on the low number of women consultants in surgery.

Led by Kim Peters from the University of Queensland, the researchers found that in the surgical speciality, women made up 14.8 per cent of all trainees in 1998, but that this figure had slumped to just 7.7 per cent a decade later.

Trainees were asked to complete a survey as part of the study, with the findings showing that men - and older respondents - were more likely to consider themselves as fitting the profile of a typical surgeon.

Dr Peters warned that the shortage of females in the profession is a "serious problem".

"Women are increasingly well represented in most other areas of medicine, but in surgery there are few women trainees and not enough of them progress to become consultants," she added.

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