Medical leaders celebrate the ascent of woman.

The BMJ’s editor in chief, Fiona Godlee, gathered together an unprecedented number of female medical leaders earlier this week in celebration of the fact that eight medical royal colleges are now led by women. The senior women are (left to right) Sue Bailey, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges; Kate Lovett, dean of the Royal College of Psychiatrists; Carrie MacEwen, chair elect of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and former president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists; Nicola Strickland, president of the Royal College of Radiologists; Jane Dacre, president of the Royal College of Physicians; Suzy Lishman, president of the Royal College of Pathologists; Clare Marx, president of the Royal College of Surgeons; Lesley Regan, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; Fiona Godlee; Parveen Kumar, chair of the BMA’s Board of Science; Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners; and Neena Modi, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Unable to make the meeting were the chief medical officers for England and Scotland: Sally Davies and Catherine Calderwood. In 2015 and 2016 there was a triumvirate of female CMOs before Ruth Hussey retired as CMO for Wales. The president elect of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Wendy Burns, was also unable to attend. Though this picture celebrates female empowerment, bastions of male dominance persist. Neither the BMA nor the General Medical Council has had a female chief executive or chair; the Lancet has not had a female editor in chief; and the Academy of Medical Sciences has never had a woman as president. The ascent of female leaders reflects demographic change in the medical profession. The latest GMC figures show that the male-female split on the medical register as a whole is 54.5% to 45.5%. However, in the GMC’s latest survey of trainees those figures are reversed: 55.9% of respondents were women and 44.1% men. In other areas of medicine women are yet to achieve equal status. A report by the Exeter Business School said that just 25% of medical directors are women, and the latest data from the Medical Schools Council show that just 18% of professors are women. Godlee said, “Having so many women in senior leadership positions in medicine is something to be celebrated and will benefit female and male doctors as well as patients. However, we must not be complacent: gender equality is something we must continue to strive for.”