By Karen Allen BBC Health Correspondent

Paediatricians face the unenviable task of trying to combine two conflicting roles.

They must be the specialist physician treating sick children which occupies most of their time, but the inquisitor in cases where child abuse is suspected.

It is an uncomfortable, but also an extremely powerful place for doctors to be - and it inevitably puts them in opposition to the child's parents.

What the survey by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Institute of Child Health seems to indicate, is that the public's trust in how that power is exercised has become eroded.

Rightly or wrongly there is a perception that the balance between paediatricians as child specialists and investigators appears to have been skewed.

Doctors now feel it is they who are in the dock, with many reporting a growing number of complaints against them.

Many other paediatricians feel they are being tarnished as a result of the adverse publicity the Meadow's cases have brought.

Although for those involved in child protection, complaints and threats are nothing new.

What has changed is the apparent volume of them - and the profession's sensitivity to public criticism especially when it's their former leader that's involved.

The survey was conducted in a climate where expert testimony in a number of high profile cases of sudden infant death was rejected.

Professor Sir Roy Meadow, the former president of the Royal College of Paediatricians - and champion of the Munchausen's by proxy theory which underpinned these cases - is now being investigated by the General Medical Council.

Tarred with the same brush

However, many other paediatricians feel they are being tarnished as a result of the adverse publicity the Meadow's cases have brought.

Those involved in child protection work expect a degree of hostility when accusing parents of harming their children, but they are worried it has become a free for all, driven by a handful of campaigners.

Websites offer a forum for anyone with an axe to grind to vent their anger against named paediatricians - and doctors feel aggrieved because they're being prematurely judged before any formal inquiry.

But the very real concern is that if the hostility towards those involved in child protection continues unabated, genuine cases of child abuse may go unnoticed.

Already some paediatricians have confided privately that a number of cases currently being investigated may never reach court because no doctor is prepared to stand as an expert witness.

That would surely be a terribly legacy for all those seeking to protect the best interests of children.