Still called Dr (PhD not medical) after retirement ?

[woodpigeons]

Just that really.
Please settle an argument for me and let me know if it is normal and/or acceptable to do this.

Jealous Hubby!!!

DH was once mislabelled as the Reverend Dr on our phone bill. He had to call the BT helpline for something and got a young man from Ireland on the phone; DH says he has never felt so revered in all his life grin I think that may be as close as men get to recognising the existence of the respect gap between them and us....

Dh has noticed. It’s fairly obvious. When we had kids and went to medical appts or during my section, for example, he noticed the tendency to talk to him. He developed the habit of interrupting, pointing to me and saying Really is the one with the PhD, she understands you. I don’t :)

And again noticing the switch in respect and talking to me as an equal.

We are Dr and Dr Babelfish so that causes some confusion...

But he’s not happy for you to use it?? Fuck that! It gets little enough respect in life generally you may as well use it on the phone to the bank

No YANBU. He is being a mardy arse.

Prof (unless emeritus) is a job title
Dr is for life.

1. Use it, you earned it - they’ll have to prise mine out of my cold, dead hands!
2. Sorry, but your DH sounds like an arse - mine is proud of me and has no problem whatsoever being ‘Mr and Dr ...’

I always use mine and always will. I bloody well earned it.

DH doesn't have one. Once, many years ago, he had a very slight huff about me having the 'higher' title. I took the piss and threatened to buy him his own title off the internet, and then use it at every public opportunity, giving him a little bow or salute every time.

He declined

I absolutely agree that a PhD Dr is the title most of all that you retain no matter what you are doing.

I am medically qualified but stopped doing any medical work some years ago - nevertheless I hang onto being Dr for my own sanity. Did start a PhD that unfortunately got derailed - my husband used to love pointing out that he was a "proper" Dr (actually MBBS / PhD so "both"), but has mercifully stopped that nowadays. Not that I disagreed with him.

You are a Dr until the end of time, unless you become so famous you become just a surname

My godmother is an academic in Austria and her title is "Frau Doktor Professor". When she first got there the bank staff were being arsey about opening a bank account for her until she showed them her letter of appointment from the university and then it was all "well why did the Frau Doktor Professor not mention it, of course for the Frau Doktor Professor we will open an account, etc." I was tickled to see even her hairdresser and greengrocer calling her Frau Doktor Professor! When she retires I wonder if she has to drop the Professor - she certainly won't drop the Doktor!!

Of course you keep the title dr! You earnt it! It's nothing to do with your job really it's a qualification.

You DH is being a massive dick! Why would it make him feel stupid? Only if he thought he was more intelligent than you and didn't like people thinking you were more intelligent than him. Tbh i'd from now on be dropping it in as much as possible if it annoys him so much, insists he calls your Dr woodpidgeon day to day

Of course it is.

well why did the Frau Doktor Professor not mention it, of course for the Frau Doktor Professor we will open an account, etc.

They are really reverential of titles over there and in Germany too!

But isn't that the case for a professor as well if it's a personal chair earned through promotion?

A Chair is earned in exactly the same way and against the same criteria - whether you earn it through promotion in the same institution, or are appointed by changing from one institution to another.

But I'd say it's primarily a job description except that it does indicate that one is really really excellent at one's job - better than simply trudging up the promotions ladder - you have to be that bit extra to be either promoted or appointed to professor.

Especially if one is female: one of the 14%

DH has a lot of insecurities caused by his not so DM, which is why I hate being called by her name, and is worse since he retired and lost the status of his job.
Don’t worry I don’t let him get away with any crap but he had got me wondering what other people do.
I’ll continue to be a doctor with pride.
xiaoxiong not such a good story as yours but I was once buying a cheap PAYG mobile in a high street store. The condescending male asked me when filling in the form ‘Is it mrs dear ?’
I said ‘No it’s doctor’ and his attitude changed completely.
My daughter, who was with me, still tells the story to this day.

Hahahah! Yes I’ve had that too. Some utter misogynist asked me if it was miss or Mrs (and he’d been extremely rude to me just prior, having a good rant about how women were crap at something or other...)

It’s neither, I said
Oh, he sneered, I knew you’d be one of those feminists who insisted on Ms.
Actually, I said, smiling broadly at him... its Doctor

I still think of it with a happy glow.

LTB, definitely.

Wait, what was the question?

Of bloody course you keep Dr, Dr OP Woodpigeons!

There is someone who looks ridiculous and it's not you, Dr OP.

The one area I'd maybe be a bit wary of using your Ph.D 'Dr' is in fact in a medical setting as there can be an assumption that you're 100% clued up thus won't get the explanation s, in layman's terms, of what's going on!

A fortnight ago, I performed a medical scan upon a bloke, Mr so-and-so, complete with my layman's, though not simplistic explanation of what the cannula and drugs were for, all fine, then when we finished, he began to unpeeled the dressing from the cannula, so I went 'Hang on, wait a sec!', fearing a haemorrhage 😁 but he then admitted he was a consultant neurologist! He said that his reason for not saying initially was so he'd get the full explanation as he knew little about the type of scan I was doing or the organ I was scanning, beyond being 2-3 years qualified!

I get that. A dermatologist is not a radiologist, who is not an endocrinologist.

In fact, we still eyeroll a bit when you say ' Hello, Mrs So-and-so' and they go 'Its Dr So-and-so' as the implication is that we'd otherwise patronise you...... And, anecdotally, you are often the ones who haven't read the test instructions properly, or don't know exactly what or why you've been sent for the test ('Sorry, Dr So-and-so, that's a conversation you should have had with your consultant, not me!').....

I don’t tend to use it in medical settings. In fact my response would be that they should call me by my first name. I’m totally happy for medical practitioners to assume I’m utterly clueless - because, for the most part, I am.

I think it's totally up to you

I have 4 friends who are non medical Dr's via the PHDs and none of them use the Dr title. They are all in different fields. Only friend who uses Dr is a another friend who is a GP and only uses it at work.

More of an issue is your husbands attitude. Is he controlling in other areas? It may be nothing and a random spat but does seem to set off a few red flags to me.

I wouldn't correct anyone not calling me Dr, I'm not that much of a twat. Though i might
also eyeroll when, as a 42yo mother of 3, I'm addressed unasked by my first name when the doctor has introduced themselves as 'doctor x'. Speaking anecdotally, of course

we still eyeroll a bit when you say ' Hello, Mrs So-and-so' and they go 'Its Dr So-and-so' as the implication is that we'd otherwise patronise you...... And, anecdotally, you are often the ones who haven't read the test instructions properly

Anecdotally, we do have a lot of experience of being patronised by you.

Read this thread.

And we have a lot of experience of imperious patients who transpire to have not read their instructions, not attended prior blood tests; in other words, poorly prepped.

Chucking the ' Dr ' thing in there by way of correction ("Don't you know who I am?") doesn't cause us to respect you any more than our prior or following patient. It just makes you sound up yourself. The vast majority of my titled patients- which we get to discover at a post-processing stage- don't feel the need.

HTH.

frogsoup- see, I don't address my patients by their first names, either, though I introduce myself to them by mine!

I find the younger staff are on far more 'first names' basis with patients, though.

Although you're on a hiding to nothing!

If I call Mzzzz (deliberately undefined- we don't get told) Smith from the waiting room, believe me, she will correct me to Miss!

YANBU and have every right to use the term Dr at all times. However if you correct someone and ask them to call you Dr you look like a dick. We had a customer at my old workplace who did it every time. She was laughed at every time she did it and we lost respect for her, she didn't gain our respect at all. I would never ask someone to call you Dr to gain their respect.

Frau Doktor Professor awesome title!
I have a friend who while they were married insisted to her dickhead of an ex-husband that they should actually be addressed as Dr and Mr xxx while they were married as Dr should take precedence (and he was such an arrogant misogynist) it went down like a lead balloon