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?

I also use it to take the piss out of myself when I've done something particularly stupid.

Me and DW are both 'Dr' but never use the title in every day life. We use Dr only on some official documents and in academic life.

It is way too much of a faff to explain your title to people and it doesnt matter anyway - just let people assume Mr/Mrs.

I worry that if I use it in real life I will be called in to assist in an emergency birth.....

ah...I see I am not alone in my irrational fear

I keep it very under wraps when in a medical environment - people seem a bit wary when treating a Doctor.

I'm not Mrs. anything, despite being married

Do so with great pride, I would, well done.

Yes, more Beta, they ask you what you think is wrong with you, when you want them to act normally and say what they really think.

It's useful on a credit card - good for getting upgrades when flying.

IME only people who're actually working in academia use it as their default title.

Do Profs use their titles outside academia? eg on their phone bill?

A medical environment is precisely where I have used it: to remind doctors that a female patient, or a parent of a patient, can actually have enough educational background to understand an article of a medical journal. That and (very occasionally) a school environment.

I used to use it but very little now. In this country at least it doesn't really seem the done thing to use it outside an academic environment.

I can see the point more with medical doctors - even though they may never have done research - since their qualification may well have relevance in everyday situtations.

I do find politicians who use the title a bit up themselves (John Reed, Rhodes Boydon, Jack Cunningham; Liam Fox is excused as he is a medical doctor) when there are also ones who have PhDs who don't use it (Gordon Brown, John Redwood, Oliver Letwin, Vince Cable, Enoch Powell (I'm not sure whether Powell had a PhD but he was made a Professor in his mid 20s which I suppose will do instead)).

What was wankerish was my friends dad parking in the doctors only spaces at the hospital on the basis of his doctorate in philosophy or something

That's incredibly wankerish.

I don't use Dr. outside academia, but now I'm about to become a SAHM for a few years I'm sorely tempted to use it more to curtail those irritating people who stereotype SAHMs.

cory - on one of two occassions I have casually mentioned I have a degree in biochemistry and that they can use technical language if they want.

That always panics medical doctors because they all hated and feared doing biochemistry when they were students.

I don't think it is pretentious at all - it's just a title. I'm working towards a PhD and will use it when I get it, because that's, erm, my title.

I think it's only pretentious if you insist on using it in situations that are social, where you wouldn't generally use anything - eg., people who insist on introducing themself as 'Dr So-and-so' when you're all having a drink in the pub. But that sort of person would probably find some other way of being wankerish if they didn't have a PhD!

Oh I like it, use it!

No one 'calls themselves' Dr, anyway - I mean, does anyone ever 'call themselves' by any title? Circulate at a party saying 'Hi, I'm Mrs/Mr/Ms X'? 'Dr HardCheese' is what's on my door at work (academic), and it's on my chequebooks, ID and anywhere one is asked for Mr/Mrs/Ms etc. If someone asks me what my title is, I tell them, and I do appreciate it, as others have said, because of its gender-neutrality and non-marital-status-informing-ness.

Should a (medical) doctor introduce him or herself as 'Dr X', I respond cheerily that I am 'Dr HardCheese', otherwise I assume first-name terms if they address me by mine. It helps point out to a particular (now thankfully rare) old-school kind of medic that there's a woman with a fully-functional brain carrying this baby/having this treatment, which is no bad thing.

My partner also has a doctorate and we're not married, so no couple-naming issues for us, but a married female friend with a doctorate and a husband without one claims that most mail comes to Dr and Mrs HisSurname.

Ohhhh, they really do!

I have an acquaintance who, every time I have seen him introduce himself, has said 'Hi, I'm Dr John Smith' (not his real name obviously). I introduced him as John to someone and he didn't say anything but was a bit frosty thereafter.

I think it probably depends how many wankers you have the misfortune to know!

Wanked out I'm afraid
Frankly its just showing off and thus crass and self important

Err ok EFA

Not wankerish at all - and well done by the way! DH uses his wherever he's required to use a title, he worked bloomin' hard for it so why not! He wouldn't introduce himself to people as Dr xxx though, just as I wouldn't introduce myself to someone as Mrs Suburbandream. I do quite often take the piss and remind him he's not a "proper doctor" though

LRD - dear Lord, what is the context of this man introducing himself? I never thought I was short on wanker acquaintances, but that's a new one on me, and half of my friends (and all my colleagues) have doctorates, and I have literally never come across this. Does he have a minuscule penis and thinks his doctorate is the equivalent of a shiny, shiny sportscar?

Of course YANBU! I'd use it if I had one! And all my friends who have PhDs all use theirs all the time... :) Congrats :)

I've just changed jobs. I'm a med doc (so not a proper 'dr').

I rarely use my it unless asked for a title. Most of my bank cards etc. just say Gasman. However the ones that insist on a title do say Dr Gasman.

I never fly as Dr Gasman. I don't want to have to do mid air CPR although if they put out an appeal I would volunteer my services (last time that happened though I got shoved out of the way by someone with a first aid qualification - if I worked in a non acute specialty eg. pathology, I could have understood the attitude but when i'd introduced myself as an anaesthetist I was a bit bemused....)

However my giggle of the week was meeting one of my new colleagues for the first time (my grade, so not senior in anyway, shape or form). I introduced myself by my first name (we were working together for the day) he did not reciprocate. I eventually had to say "urmm. so what's your name?"

At which point he told me he was called "Dr X (his surname) " I was a bit bemused.... and finally said do you want me to call you "Dr X". Apparently he did.

Now that is weird.

The only possible reason I can think of is that he isn't from the UK but has been here for long enough (I think) to realise that within our grade we are all on first name terms.

I spent the rest of the day trying not to call him anything!

Sometimes I consider doing a PhD just so I don't have to deal with the whole Miss/Ms/Mrs thing.

Problem is - what subject could I choose? Would have to be the field I work in and frankly 37 and a few hours a week of that is plenty. Can you do a PhD in wittering on the internet?