Are you a "doc"?

[RJP]

The question is: who should call him/herself a doctor (if you respond "a doctor should" I will hang myself)?

Hmmm....

 

[Scotttyd]

My friend, Chris, is a dentist in Manhattan. When he was heavily involved in cave and technical diving, he would think nothing of calling me at any hour of the day or night to ask me questions about diving. On one cave trip, I wondered if I had chipped a tooth because my tongue felt something wasn't right when passing across the tooth. I asked him to look at it and let me know if I was correct in my assumption. His response, "Oh, no way, man! I've been doing dentistry all week. This is my vacation." Geez, I just wanted him to let me know if I needed to see a dentist about it right away. I remarked, "Dude, you call me at 2 A.M. leaving a bar and ask me about ratio decompression." He said, "Yeah, but diving is fun!"

As pharmacists we give away so much free advice (our own stupidity opening ourselves up to litigation if we did not have the whole story) from people who just randomly stop by the store - not even our real customers? That is just one of many reason I work in a hospital setting vs retail.

I have learned to say - you need to call the pharmacist that filled your prescription (often mail order) but in today's society there is always one person looking to sue for some BS.

 

[fireflock]

I am of the belief that anyone who has completed a doctoral program, regardless of their field of study, has earned the right to be called a doctor. Whether it is a doctorate of law, doctorate of education, philosophy, etc. A physician is simply a person who has completed their doctorate of medicine. No more or less important than any other field of study. It seems that people outside the profession make a bigger deal out of it than those within.

I think there's more to it than this. A doctorate of medicine, or law, or any other professional school is quite a bit different than having a PhD.

Finishing some sort of professional school means that you have a base of knowledge shared with virtually everyone else in your field. Finishing a PhD means that you have learned something that virtually no one else in the world knew about before you told them (and really, how many people are really going to read your dissertation).

A professional school Dr. (or gentrified trade school, as I tease my siblings) has some knowledge or skill that is useful to almost every person in the general population at some point in their life. It just makes sense that people in the general public would want to know who they can ask for advice about a particular problem. What I don't understand is why anyone would want to subject themselves to that outside of work

I still think my dissertation research is fascinating stuff, but I also understand that the average person will never care (or even want to know enough to understand the details).

My general impression is that people use their professional titles in casual situations when they (a) enjoy sharing their knowledge or (b) are eager for some kind of special treatment (or both). It typically takes about 2 minutes to figure out which is most important to the person you're dealing with.

 

[ScubaDocER]

I think there's more to it than this. A doctorate of medicine, or law, or any other professional school is quite a bit different than having a PhD.

I suppose it is a matter of perspective. My mother has her PhD in Psychology. I don't believe that she knows things that only a few people in the world could comprehend. I do believe that she is very competent in her area of study and respect her as I would any other doctor.

Whatever the reasons may be for seeing differences in people who have completed a doctorate degree, I still maintain that they have earned the right to be called a doctor. IMHO to suggest otherwise belittles their hard work and dedication to their field of study.

Whether your knowledge is shared amongst others in your field or you are working on ground breaking research, your completion of a doctoral degree is still valid. There are many MDs who are working exclusively in research environments. They have forgone their clinical side altogether. There are some who have completed an MD/PhD program and dabble in both the clinical and research environments.

While I don't want to hijack the initial purpose of this thread (even though I am not completely clear on its intent), I did want to comment on the post.

 

[Crush]

Hmmm....

:hanged:

 

[fireflock]

I suppose it is a matter of perspective. My mother has her PhD in Psychology. I don't believe that she knows things that only a few people in the world could comprehend. I do believe that she is very competent in her area of study and respect her as I would any other doctor.

Whatever the reasons may be for seeing differences in people who have completed a doctorate degree, I still maintain that they have earned the right to be called a doctor. IMHO to suggest otherwise belittles their hard work and dedication to their field of study.

Whether your knowledge is shared amongst others in your field or you are working on ground breaking research, your completion of a doctoral degree is still valid. There are many MDs who are working exclusively in research environments. They have forgone their clinical side altogether. There are some who have completed an MD/PhD program and dabble in both the clinical and research environments.

While I don't want to hijack the initial purpose of this thread (even though I am not completely clear on its intent), I did want to comment on the post.

I'm not trying to say one is more legit or more valuable than the other, only that they are different (professional vs research degrees).

Greg Louganis was a diver. Jacque Cousteau was a diver. They are both entitled to call themselves divers, but the general public can get confused because a Louganis diver is a lot different than a Cousteau diver. When you need the prop inspected on your boat, you don't want to see a guy in a speedo jumping off a springboard.

I was trying to say that the general public wants to know if you're the 'hey doc, look at this sore on my neck' kind of doctor and not if you're a 'hey doc, tell me again about how 12th and 13th century sculptures tell us about pre-columbian maize diffusion' kind of doctor.

When someone hears 'Dr. so and so' outside of certain professional contexts, they want to show you the sore on their neck.

 

[RJP]

from people who just randomly stop by the store - not even our real customers? That is just one of many reason I work in a hospital setting vs retail.

As a marketer I've gotta say that if you don't consider everyone who walks in the door a customer - whether they are currently making a purchase or not - it's probably a good thing you don't work in the retail setting.



(PS - apart from the potential liability issue which I understand; drug-drug interactions, other concomitant meds, comorbid conditions, etc.)

 

[ScubaDocER]

I'm not trying to say one is more legit or more valuable than the other, only that they are different (professional vs research degrees).

I was trying to say that the general public wants to know if you're the 'hey doc, look at this sore on my neck' kind of doctor and not if you're a 'hey doc, tell me again about how 12th and 13th century sculptures tell us about pre-columbian maize diffusion' kind of doctor.

When someone hears 'Dr. so and so' outside of certain professional contexts, they want to show you the sore on their neck.

I agree that they are different in terms of what they do with their doctorate. No question about it. If the general public has a question about what kind of doc you are, they can just ask. Seems to me that would resolve the confusion.

 

[boulderjohn]

When I taught college, I actually preferred "professor" to "doctor".

Teaching surgeons often choose to be called, "Professor."

Interesting.

When I was learning the fine art of scholarly writing in graduate school, I was warned to be careful about using the title "professor" when referencing someone who had published something to which you were referring. I was told there was an unspoken convention to use it to give respect to the person whose views you were about to shred, as in "Professor Jones, whose position apparently came to him during a moment of lunacy...."

 

[Trace Malinowski]

When someone hears 'Dr. so and so' outside of certain professional contexts, they want to show you the sore on their neck.

My mother recently had cataract surgery. She is a retired college professor. When they introduced her as "Dr." to the staff at the eye surgery center, they assumed she was an M.D. and gave her the first class version of treatment.