Academics using 'Dr' - wankerish?

[RevoltingPeasant]

On the day I got my PhD, the first thing my mum said to me when I rang to say I'd passed was, 'Oh, I do hope you won't call yourself Dr, it's so pretentious...

...and congratulations!'

Anywho, I never get called Dr except on my office door and in rejection letters from journals. But I think most academics do use it in civilian life. I kinda want to. Does this make me a smug git, especially because my subject specialism is in something entirely useless to humanity literature?

Yep, Professor Sir. They get very cross if you get it wrong

DS is incredibly impressed that I work with not one, but 2 Knights

I doubt most Dr Teachers did their PhD while teaching though. I finished writing mine up as I started my first teaching job (one month late finish overlap) and it was a flipping nightmare.

DrRevoltingPeasant - nice one.

Oh, sure. That's what I was getting at really, that there might be exceptions where it would feel different.

Just pondering really.

From now I shall be an out and proud DrWanker

Can I get away with a Dr Jareth?

Question to all those who think it is-

why is Dr 'wankerish' but 'Mrs' isn't? They are both titles you gain through doing something- getting a PhD/ getting married. What is different? Why does filling a form and putting 'Dr' in the box get you so hot under the collar, when putting 'Mrs' doesn't?

....Oh and I'd be bloody thrilled if one if the DC's teachers was 'Dr.Teacher'- lovely to have someone teaching the DC's with that standard of education surely- who in their right minds would disagree?

I would, you have studied so long and hard for a Phd, may as well reap the rewards, including being able to put Dr before your name

Wottinger - because getting a man down the aisle is something to actually aspire to, whereas studying and researching for years and having in culminate in a doctorate is just showing off/presuming you're better than other people. Obviously.

I don't have a PhD, for the record. I'd go by Doctor if I did.

And I love all the frothers saying, 'well, I'm not impressed by it'... Nobody's asking you to be impressed by it...? It's a recognised title, just the same as Mr, Miss, Ms, Mrs, Rev, etc, etc. You sound way chippy, thinking people are out to impress you.

Hmmm. Well, most of you aren't going to like the following. I'm afraid that I think using Dr outside of a work environment is indicative of a bit of an inferiority complex.

As it happens I'm both a medical doctor and a PhD. I use Dr only in the hospital to identify my role to patients, and if medical expertise is called on outside for conferences/meetings etc. Out of work I'm Ms/Mrs. I don't need people to know I'm a doctor. If anyone tries to talk down to me, they'll find out pretty swiftly that that isn't the way to go. I don't need to do it by bolstering my status in their mind by a title - which is pretty meaningless btw. It means you worked hard in university and achieved what you set out to achieve, but that only matters to you.

Interestingly, patients rarely identify themselves as Dr so-and-so unless medical. I will tell you that in a hospital setting doing so unless you're medical personnel is only likely to engender an inward sigh of oh-god-that-sort rather than respect for your immense education, whatever you may perceive to be the case.

Also, using the title where there is any chance that someone may perceive you as a qualified medical doctor is unethical. In fact, if you take it further than that, deliberately misrepresenting yourself as a medical doctor to an airline/any other agency is illegal. It could well be interpreted that you are doing that unless you are clearly stating your title as Dr (PhD). Which is your right, even if I think it is wankerish. In the last year, I've volunteered for medical assistance on two flights. If the flight attendant comes to you first in those circumstances, I do hope you'll feel a little sheepish when you admit "Oh goodness no, I can't help with that man having palpitations/MI/CVA...I'm not that kind of a doctor. But if you want passages quoted from King Lear, i'm your girl ho ho ho...I really had no idea you'd think I was a medical doctor, is that really the interpretation that most people put on that...oh dear."

I guess in conclusion my opinion is that it is a bit amusing that you feel the need to use the title. But if you insist on your entitlement, you should very clearly say or state Dr (PhD).

Oh don't be so daft, no one is pretending they're a medic when they're not. Why would they? If you want to be a medic you go and do a medical degree. You don't go through a longer, less well-paid process just for the sake of it then pretend you have the other qualification.

Straighttalker you've expressed what other people have said on this thread, that when people hear someone refer to themselves as 'Dr' they think 'not that sort', but isn't that missing the point, because person after person has come on here and say they call themselves Dr because THEY are proud of their hard work, and (to my knowledge) no-one has come on saying they do it routinely to impress people.

Not quite true.

Throughout the thread, people aren't just using the title doctor outside of a professional environment because they're proud of it, there's a recurrent theme through the posts that people use it to get more respect when dealing with others, to blag upgrades, because they feel they're entitled to do so and so on.

I agree if you earned something and really feel strongly about using it, go ahead. I might think its a bit much, but it's an individual choice.
However surely if you're using the title because you're proud to have earned it, you should be very clear to those hearing/reading your qualification what it is exactly that you have earned - which is a PhD in whatever discipline.
I think by simply using the title, you know it will be misinterpreted and understood a certain way by most people who hear it.

P.S. For the record, the PhD was harder by far than the medical degree. However it was nowhere nearly as hard as the postgraduate examinations (which is what doctors do post-qualification when they choose their qualifying hospital speciality).

I don't know if this is right, but a fair few people have said that apparently it is medical doctors whose title is honorary, not the other way around.

I don't like the idea of blagging upgrades and what have you either - but it is a teeny bit smug/hypocritical that you assume these people get upgrades not because people think they might have a doctorate ... oh, no, it must be because they're faking being medics. One could be fooled into thinking you were a tiny bit superior about your qualifications there ...

Yes but surely there's some difference in using it, for example, to book an appt with a plumber (and if you are doing this to ensure better service, and you are actually a Dr, why the hell not??) and saying 'oh by the way did you know I'm a Dr'. Because who really does the latter?

And, for the record, using the title Dr in non-work life to 'get more respect' is very different from pointlessly showing off, which people ARE being accused of doing.

LRD That's correct in that medical doctors can use the title doctor, even though they don't have a PhD, which is the usual requirement to call yourself doctor.

However, as most people come across more medical doctors in their lives than people with PhD's you can see why most people think it's the other way round.

Yes, I think I'd expect it to be the other way around real.

Academic titles are hard earned and I support the right of those with them to use them. Nothing pretentious about it at all. Only a society that celebrates mediocrity would argue that there is.

I use it outside of the workplace. But what I have found to be very useful is that I am separated from fecker of Ex and much better to say DrRay than the ole Mrs that was.

Wanker and proud here, I'm afraid.

I use Dr as a non-gender-specific alternative to Miss/Ms/Mrs. Simple as that. FWIW, unless specifically asked for my first name, I also sign myself as Dr T. UnheardOf. I also use it when signing things jointly with my DH as a way of breaking the traditional priority of male over female, so we are Dr UnheardOf and Mr UnheardOf'sDH, rather than Mr and Mrs. (OK, so not so much smashing the patriarchy as chipping away at it with a butter knife, but, hey, every little helps!) I got divorced and changed my name back to my maiden name while I was doing my PhD, so perhaps this whole 'Dr as opposed to Ms/Mrs/Miss' thing was particularly important to me.

I have never used it to blag anything (and have never been successful in blagging anything or been treated noticeably better than anyone else) and I'm a bit horrified by the idea that it cold be used in this way. I am told, however, that the title 'Dr' can sometimes be a factor in lowering your car insurance premium. But then, there are so many factors that feed into those calculations (some companies offer lower rates to women, for example).

My one exception is anywhere where I might be mistaken for a medical doctor (e.g. at the doctor's surgery, dentist's, on flights etc. - though my title is 'Dr' on my credit and debit cards, so sometimes I get 'found out' when booking flights, and I also had it on my US visa when I went over there as I was entering on an academic visa). Mostly booking flights and what-have-you the 'title' field is a drop-down box thing, so using Dr UnheardOf (PhD) is just not an option (and isn't that tautologous anyway... and - dare I say - a bit wankerish-looking - like saying 'In case you didn't notice the first "Dr" I am going to point it out again!'?).

I spent a long time in hospital a few years back. As I have said, I didn't use the title 'Dr', but people who sent cards and things did address them to Dr T. UnheardOf, and invariably they went missing and ended up in the (real) doctors' mail. My consultant thought it was most amusing. Maybe he was just pretending, and behind my back was calling me a wanker, but I don't think so...

Really fail to see why it's wankerish to use Dr when specifically asked for a title. It is your title, pure and simple. Why would you faff about using different titles (this does cause unexpected problems sometimes) just in case someone thinks you should be hiding your achievements?

Incidentally, this is not really a problem in the US, where medical doctors are called physicians. Or in Germany, where the Dr title is reserved for PhDs.

I've no problem with it either. It's well known that there are two types of doctor, and if people presume that you are a medical doctor not an academic one then I think that isn't really the fault of someone using their perfectly legitimate title. If academic doctors are going to be required to add something after their name to show that they are Phds then medics should do the same (especially perhaps as they were not the first to use the title, which was originally religious/legal)

I rather like interesting titles, just for a bit of variety, my grandfathers were both knighted and used 'Sir" after that, which I suppose was very wankerish, but really why the hell not? Likewise I have a friend who is a Dame, and really good on her.

I work in a school where several of the staff have doctorates. I can only think of three of them off the cuff who actually use the title 'doctor', though. They are viewed as wankerish. This may be because they act like wankers in many other ways, though - being flirty with parents, showing off to students, etc, though.