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?

Blimey, can't believe this is contentious. If you're a Lord your title is lord, if you're a knight or baronet your title is Sir, if you're a vicar, your title is Rev, if you're a PhD your title is Dr.

Why on earth would it be pretentious for any one of those people to use their correct title if they so choose? If anything, I would have thought it more pretentious for those who have inherited titles (or gained them on marriage) to use them - at least the others have come to deserve their titles through hard work or other merit.

Apparently, there are two types of doctors. Proper doctors, and medics.

Yes - saying 'it's Dr Myname' in response to being addressed as 'Mrs DP'sName' is, to me, a statement of rebuttal of two assumptions which I find annoying and which I think people should think twice before making. That's why I do it.

I think that academics should call themselves Dr - they have worked for their PhD, just as medics have worked for theirs.

I work in an academic institution (I am not an academic though) and most people use their titles here, however there is a ban on putting academic titles and 'letters after your name' on business cards, as apparently it got a bit silly .

I have been in meetings where everyone else is a Dr, Professor, or on several notable occasions, Nobel prize winners, and I feel very inferior indeed with my poxy MEng!

I admire anyone who has had the tenacity to work so hard for a doctorate - and think if they feel proud and want to demonstrate that they have achieved a PhD, well good on them.

Going around introducing yourself as Dr Hardgoing at social events is wankerish.

Using a drop-down menu full of titles and selecting the correct one (Dr) is not wankerish.

And, if I ever get to be a Professor, I bloody well will be using it.

Essential Fatty Acid and others, why is calling yourself 'Dr' wankerish when calling yourself 'Mrs' is not? Both are acquired titles, following something you have done, which gives you the right to a different title- what's the difference?

That's the question I'd like answering, Wottinger. I can quite understand the view that there should be no titles, or universal Mr and Ms. Objecting to Dr but accepting Mrs makes no sense to me.

straighttalker 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).

Nonsense. No one is claiming to pretend they are a medical doctor. You assume that Ph.Ds get better treatment because others assume they are medical doctors.

Pompous and entitled, much?

EFA, what title do you use?

Personally I think if you have earned the title it is up to you if you want to use it, but it is the way it is used that gives a certain impression. For me, I think it is a bit pretentious to use it in a situation when titles wouldn't normally be used, so I guess the examples given of people insisting they are addressed as Dr so and so at a social gathering when everyone else is on first name terms (yes, that happens). I can see the appeal of the relative anonomity of the term as well. If you like being treated differently on the basis of a title, then fine, but for me that makes me very uncomfortable hence dh and I rarely use the term. I don't like the sometimes special treatment given nor do I like the way certain people treat you once they find out.

I'm a PhD who work with medics in academia in an admin role! So I tend not to use a title unless I have to at work in case someone assumes I am an academic or one of the clinicians, and like others I have an array of different IDs, some with my title and others without.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned, by not all clinicians are Drs. Doctors who gain membership to Royal College of Surgeons revert to Mr/Mrs/Miss.

Someone mentioned it a bit Franup, but wrongly - they said all doctors revert to Mr/Ms/etc when they became consultants.

The way I understand it, back in the olden days there were physicians, who gave you medicine and told you to go to the sea to take the air, and there were barber-surgeons who cut you up. The physicians called themselves "doctor", the surgeons did not. The physicians looked down on the surgeons quite a bit, too, and didn't consider them "doctors".

Nowadays we lump them together as doctors, but when surgeons specialise and become highly qualified as surgeons they like to lose the "doctor" and go back to Mr/Ms/etc to show that they are proud of being a surgeon not a physician. Or for some reason like that.

Is that how it works? And why do the surgeons you know say that they do it, other than "because it is the tradition"?

Yup, straighttalker, if this potentially disastrous mix-up is what's worrying you, perhaps we should all start canvassing for medics to be prevented from using their honorary title outside of work hours? That makes more sense actually - as has been established, a medic's 'Dr.' simply refers to the job they currently do, so using it outside the work environment is pretty nonsensical. A bit like calling a dentist 'Dentist Smith'. Daft really. Let's change it and be in step with some of our European cousins

Or all those getting a bad case of the Froth could just realise that it isn't important, it isn't a 'boast', it's just a title, it's the same as Mrs. or Rev., it's just what you are. Officially. Having it and using it doesn't make you a wanker, being a wanker makes you a wanker (at a party: 'Hello, I am Dr. Wanker - awful, just as much as 'Hello, I am Mrs. Wanker' - when Susie Wanker is perfectly sufficient).

shoutyhamster I agree - its a title. The title isn't the wankerish bit, its the way its used that can be. Its bloody hard work to get and I have no problem with people using a title they have earned. In a non wankerish way obv .

Re the Dr or not for surgeons - there are certain perceptions attached to different specialities, if thats the right word. Surgeons differentiate themselves from medics by the title and the tradition of reverting to Mr/Mrs etc when becoming a consultant does go back to the time when they weren't considered Drs because they cut people (the hippocratic oath covers cutting among other things).

I am in the final year of my PhD and damn right I am going to use my title. I will have earned it. I think it is far less wankerish to use a title you have earned than to use a courtesy aristocratic title, which some of my friends do (mainly to get better tables in restaurants). I will use it on cheque books and the like and if feeling snotty when complaining to crappy utility providers, but will not go around introducing myself as Dr Phyllis socially.

Interestingly, in American academia the title 'Dr' is very rarely used - only post docs and research associates use it. Anyone with a lecturer post and above is called 'Professor,' even if they are not a full professor, and people can get quite snippy if you call them 'Dr' because it implies they are not proper lecturing staff. But in my experience academia works mostly on first name terms anyway.

One thing that, hypocritically, bugs me enormously about the US use of 'Dr' is that it is also used by dentists and optometrists. Which I suppose is really fair enough because their degrees are always postgrad and are called 'Doctor of Dental Medicine' etc., but it seems weird to me and I think particularly with optometrists it is misleading because it makes them hard to distinguish from ophthalmologists, who are physicians.

In Germany I am called "Frau Prof Dr Esperance". :o

If you need emergency hypnotherapy during a Lufthansa flight, I am your woman.

I never used it in the US apart from a few times at work when dealing with non university people. Not once form ever required me fill my title, I thought that was great actually.

The only time I used it was when a dentist insisted I call him doctor, so I then did the same

WHAT!?!?!?!?

After 4 years of writing this bloody thesis I will demand to be known as Dr - even if it is of philosophy and I will be what my father fondly refers to as a 'useless doctor'.

How is it pretentious!?! It's your actual, legal title. I will even call Easyjet to demand they allow a Dr option on tickets. Noone who hasn't written a PhD thesis quite understands the fear, self doubt and loneliness of it - it's not like being at work where someone can help you, you have to become basically a world authority on a specific and very narrow subject (atleast for philosophy, not sure about others). It's terrifying, especially not knowing whether there will be any humanities jobs going at the end of this 4 year, perpetually poor slog.

So yes, I will use Dr at every given opportunity.

Yes phyllis. What you said.

I never knew one of my friends had a PhD until she gave me a cheque which had Dr before her name. I thought it was a bit strange that she never talked about it but chose to have it on a cheque.

Shoutyhamster

It can be useful if people know you are a medical Dr outwith work setting eg cardiac arrest or other medical emergency. Otherwise you could have anyone pretending to be medical and no way of knowing whether they were or not.

Someone further up suggested we distinguish PhD and medical dr's by adding letters after our names - I would have to add 14 letters plus 3 words to this which would be EXTREMELY wanky IMO

Bear in mind most dr's do lots of post- grad exams to become consultants or GPs and that the whole process will take at least 10 years of studying, working and exams.( so most of is are more than just MBChB

A well known dentist who writes in "Dental Update" has seventeen (17) separate postgrad qualifications. I just tried to count the letters but ran out of interest after 21.

You can just pay for some letters so they don't mean as much as they appear to sometimes. I'm very proud of my postnominals and am supposed to be working on another set now but you know, MN is just here & it's hard to motivate myself.

If I had one I'd have it tattooed on my forehead, and business cards printed with the Dr in gold :o

You've earned it, damn well use it!