<p>My D, who has earned a clinical doctorate degree in physical therapy granted by a leading medical school, has the title DPT, Doctor of Physical Therapy. She works in a hospital setting and because the MDs there are referred as “Dr”, she only introduces herself as the patient’s physical therapist. She does have the right to use the title “Doctor” but would not do so in that setting as it would be confusing to patients.</p>
<p>However, she certainly earned the title.</p>
<p>Dr. Ross Geller explored this issue in depth if I remember…</p>
<p>If everyone else is Dr… then what do you call an M.D.? It is not just that this is the level of their education. It is that this is their profession. I am not a Doctorate, I am a Doctor.</p>
<p>While it’s true that the JD stands for juris doctor, that wasn’t always the typical first law degree–it used to be LL.B. (or bachelor of laws)–and I think some law schools still conferred that until fairly recently. At some point lawyers wanted to make it clearer that they had a professional degree, so the law schools switched to JD. It didn’t result in lawyers in the US being called “doctor,” though. Interestingly, the next law degree after the JD is still called the LL.M., or Master of Laws, in most law schools.</p>
<p>mantori.suzuki, I wonder who would win in a duel between a Master of Laws and a Master of Science?</p>
<p>I agree that PhDs and other non-MD doctorate holders are technically entitled to call themselves “Dr.” But it seems rather over the top when they actually do so, and also potentially very confusing if there are MDs working in the same field or same institution.</p>
<p>I do append the PhD after my name on my business card and formal letters or e-mails that I send as part of my work. But when someone orally addresses me as “doctor” I immediately tell them to call me by my first name. The only times I ever call myself “Dr. _____,” spoken out loud, is when I’m trying to blow past some secretary who is reluctant to put my phone call through to some busy or important colleague. </p>
<p>Whenever someone adresses me as Dr. on the phone, that’s the tip-off that they don’t really know me and are probably going to try to sell me something. The only people who ever call me Dr on the phone AT HOME are volunteers at my old grad school calling up to ask for another donation.</p>
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<p>Yes, this typical hierarchy is:
Attending
Chief Resident
Resident
Intern
Medical Student</p>
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</p>
<p>I find that no more confusing than the current system where I can be seen by any one from a nurse to a nurse practitioner to a physicians assistant to a resident to an attending to a medical doctor. If several of them want to add “doctor” (because they’ve earned it, I might add), that’s not going to add to my level of confusion. </p>
<p>Frankly, the whole issue strikes me as a bad case of medical doctor’s ego. So far as we know, there is no cure.</p>
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<p>No, they are not just doctors. They are pediatricians or cardiologists or dentists and so on. That’s really not an issue, in my opinion.</p>
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<p>Sez who?</p>
<p>There is a difference between individual people deciding that using an honorific for themselves in daily life is too stuffy or formal, and then deciding that others should find it too stuffy also. If you find yourself undeserving of the title you earned, that’s your problem.</p>
<p>Yes, in a hospital or clinic, one has the expectation that “doctor” means physician. But on a college campus? If you are in a Transylvanian castle on Halloween, you can probably expect that someone called “Count” is a vampire.</p>
<p>Here are the rules as I see them:</p>
<p>On campus, people with doctorates should be called doctor and should expect to be called doctor. Substitute “professor” as desired.</p>
<p>In a medical setting, only medical doctors should be called doctors.</p>
<p>In any other setting, it is respectful to call anyone with a doctorate doctor, but it is dumb for anyone but a medical doctor to expect to be called doctor. And even medical doctors should not expect to be called doctor by friends, informal acquaintances, neighbors, and relatives. Example: My new landlord is a chiropractor. I call him Dr. Stevens. When he calls me, he says, “Hi, this is Ray.” I think this is as it should be.</p>
<p>If you are a medical doctor and get upset when your neighbor says, “Good morning, Bill,” then you are the terminus of a horse’s digestive system.</p>
<p>“I didnt go to six years of Evil Medical School to be called “Mister”. Thank you very much.”</p>
<p>Dr. Evil
“Austin Powers”</p>
<p>Full disclosure, I don’t have an advanced degree or any degree- I didn’t even graduate from high school. 
I do however know personally and professionally people who have gone to college, including quite a few with ( multiple) Ph.ds & M.D.s</p>
<p>It is my casual observation that those who have post doc work in research institutions like HYP &/or institutes like Max Planck do not ask or expect to be called “Dr”, but those who have obtained their title from lesser known facilities , like Heritage University on the Yakama Indian Reservation ( especially when their Ph.d seems to have little to do with their current position) do. ( & will call you out if you do not address them * properly*.</p>
<p>Considering that the Pacific Northwest is pretty casual about that sort of thing ( for instance at Reed College, the profs seem to prefer to be called by their first name or their last, not with a title), it can seem pretty pretentious to have someone insist on being called Dr. in a setting with others who are more educated but who do not use an honorific.</p>
<p>Agreed that the original article was really about the power struggle between MD/DOs and ‘physician extenders’, as they are sometimes called. With the shortage of MD/DOs, we are seeing other categories popping up to meet the need. The issue is what type of supervision they require to do their job. </p>
<p>Frankly, for me, I really don’t care whether I see a NP or PA or MD for routine visits, minor issues. If it is something serious, then I want to know that I am good hands with the one most capable of handling the issue, regardless of their title.</p>
<p>I don’t have any problem with Phds being called doctor, or any professional who has earned the title.
I do have a problem in the medical office, hospital or clinic with people introducing themselves as doctor when they are not the MD I expected to see. And these days you may never see a doctor (MD) at all. I just want to know up front–truth in advertising.
Maybe MDs do need another title than doctor.</p>
<p>“Frankly, for me, I really don’t care whether I see a NP or PA or MD for routine visits, minor issues.”</p>
<p>Makes sense, but who gets to decide if something is minor or routine, and what processes are in place to address problems that arise? Worse case, but increasingly common scenario; someone ends up in a really complicated situation, and NO physicians have been involved. NOW what? Or there might be ten people involved in a case that goes ary, one a doctor who has never seen the patient, but supposedly “supervises”. I think we are going to see a LOT of that. Will ALL “providers” be expected to carry “1 mill/3 mill” med mal, or will the injured go only after the “supervising doctor”? </p>
<p>Ok, end rant. Back to work.</p>
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<p>Don’t forget the Fellows!</p>
<p>Attending
Fellow
Chief Resident
Resident
Intern
Medical Student </p>
<p>Maybe a more accurate list would be:
Surgeon!
Attending
Fellow
Chief Resident
Resident
Intern
Medical Student</p>
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<p>I think a healthcare provider is crazy to not carry liability insurance as it is. I’ve actually carried it since I was a sophomore in college. In college, we were required to carry it per university policy. Now, I carry it in addition to the malpractice insurance my company carries for me.</p>
<p>I’m talking about liability insurance equal to the provider you are “extending”. Is that what you mean?</p>
<p>My liability insurance is $1mil/$3mil if that’s what you mean… I’m a certified athletic trainer so I don’t “extend” a physician like what would normally be considered…</p>
<p>What do ya call the person who finishes last in their class in medical school…</p>
<p>Doctor.</p>
<p>I have advanced degrees and sometimes us the title, sometimes I don’t…depends on the audience/document/situation.
I don’t have an issue with it and it is not my problem if someone else takes issue with it.</p>
<p>All entitled to their own opinion.
If you earned the degree; you choose how and when to use the title yourself.</p>
<p>I also carry a pager. You have to sell it.</p>
<p>As far as PhDs, in my experience the frequency that college professors who have them are called “Doctor” is in inverse relationship to the “prestige” of the college. At the very little known school I work at, the PhDs stress “Doctor” at every possible instance, in order to distinguish themselves from the many doctorate-less adjuncts, like me (but we all get called Profesor by our students and colleagues).</p>
<p>But at the fairly well known school I went to, I never once heard a professor refered to as Dr. So and So, and my kids report the same at their schools. It’s always “Professor” which always seemed more egalitarian to me.</p>
<p>What I find silly is the online “doctorates” that many teachers seem to get in recent times, so there are gym teachers, shop teachers, etc, who are Dr Whatever ,while never setting foot in a graduate classroom or doing anything like what would have been considered adequate, meaningful research in the past.</p>
<p>When my H left medicine to teach HS, he would gladly have dumped the “Dr” (he never used it socially by choice), but the school liked the idea of having a medical doctor teaching, and the title stuck. The kids like calling him “Doc D.” OTOH, because there’s a PhD in the department, plus the usual Ed.D’s wandering around, invariably some time through the school year, some kid will get wind of his former profession and say something along the lines of “you mean you’re a *doctor *doctor???”</p>