To correct this?

[TrainsandDiggers]

If your title was Dr and your child’s teacher kept referring to you as Mrs (a fair enough assumption on their part), would you correct them? And if you did, would you sound like you’re a bit up yourself? I’m aware of people correcting to Ms, Miss or Mrs, but not to anything else. TIA

Apart from actual medical doctors, I mean.

Please don't correct it... I'm cringing at the thought! If your children are on the school trip and hear you do that in front of their friends then I can only imagine how embarrassed they'd feel.

Then again I come from a country where humility and self-depreciation are obligatory character traits, I know it's less so in the U.K. so maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I'm envisaging? Still mortified at the thought though!

I am Ms Pyjamas. DDs teachers always call me Mrs DD/DHs Surname at the first parents night of the year. The first time I went to one without DH I missed my timeslot (as I didn't realise I'd been called). I now listen out for the wrong name then say " actually it's Ms Pyjamas but please call me Catz"
One teacher did eyeroll!

Do you mean surgeons versus physicians?

When I last read up on this, quite a few years ago, although it was generally/originally the case that the "Dr" title was dropped when someone qualified as a surgeon, I think I read that senior doctors who were not surgeons also dropped the "Dr" title to signal their importance. Not sure if it was some or all who did this. I would have thought the NHS would have rules about what title you use, so I wonder if practise differs between NHS and private sector.

I also read somewhere that theoretically you don't need a medical degree to be a surgeon, not sure if this was in the US or UK or both, but in any case it sounds very far-fetched that there would be surgeons in either country today who weren't also medical doctors, whether or not they used that title.

I don’t know of any medical consultants who dropped ‘Dr’, even back in the day. I would think in terms of male:female medics that if you looked at full time equivalents that males would outnumber females despite higher graduation numbers.

It’s weird - I’m fiercely protective of my ‘Miss’ at work and will correct patients/other doctors that shockingly I am a female surgeon in a heavily male dominated specialty and not either a baby doctor or a nurse that’s a bit cocky. But outside of the hospital I go by ‘Dr’ and will correct people. I would rather chew off my arm than volunteer on a school trip so I am only guessing that I wouldn’t correct children, but I haven’t corrected them at school yet.

It's not "weird" why you do that Moreis - judging by your post the reasons are very obvious.

I think the use of Mrs should stop now. I hate it with a passion. I just sign my name with Dr as it makes life easy. On school app, you choose one of the relevant titles automatically. I don't care if the teachers remember my title or name itself. It's just a habit and I really don't think about it anymore. So I am Dr on all my official mail/correspondence/deliveries etc but SantaClause everywhere else.

My headmaster was Dr., I think it's perfectly reasonable to have the kids call you that. They'll probably think you're really cool! We all did.

@Havaina
“They are using the correct title, Mrs, Ms, Mr are perfectly fine.”

You are incorrect on every level 😂

If you have earned a doctorate then that is your actual title.

@GreyPJs

It's fine to use it as a title but very arrogant to use it personally.

And very crass to use it personally or to introduce yourself as Dr outside of academia, unless you're a medical doctor.

It's so much easier at my DC's school. "Philomena" or "DD's mum" will be helping out today.

It would make me think some kind of inferiority issue going on if One insisted on it being used beyond it's professional role.

DSis is Dr but I could never imagine her feeling the need to use the title on a school trip.

spaniel I've just taken a tour of a secondary school where all the female teachers (who don't have PhDs) are called Madam X. I think it sounds like a brothel! 😂

I don't understand why many posters are fine with medical (honorary) doctors using the title Dr in any setting, but not people with actual doctorates? If anyone has the most 'right', it's the latter group as they have actually earned it; the former are afforded use of it as a courtesy.

Do the same people begrudge the use of titles such as 'lord' and 'lady', which are based on (usually) unearned wealth & privilege?

If anyone has the most 'right', it's the latter group as they have actually earned it; the former are afforded use of it as a courtesy.

In the US, it's not honorary. The medical degree is a post-graduate doctorate, as is a law degree. Lawyers don't use the title Dr, though, even professionally.

No, I'm a Dr but it's fine to call me Mrs as I'll answer to either, as I'm both! My MIL is also Dr or Mrs lol 😆

The only time I've pull anyone up in it over the last 14 years since my graduation was when teaching at university as the first years kept calling me 'miss' ... which I LOATHE!

I don't understand why many posters are fine with medical (honorary) doctors using the title Dr in any setting, but not people with actual doctorates? If anyone has the most 'right', it's the latter group as they have actually earned it; the former are afforded use of it as a courtesy

Not entirely correct but often touted as being fact.

Do you mean surgeons versus physicians?

I asked the above question in response to someone who said (paraphrasing) that the realised from numerous hospital appointments as a child that the REAL doctors called themselves Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms

• implying the didn't think physicians were real doctors but surgeons were.

They confirmed this what they meant

You know that box that says "title" on a form...

This is about addressing people correctly, not exerting superiority.

Some posters appear to have an inferiority complex.

My friend is a lady. That’s her official title. If a teacher referred to her or introduced her as Mrs xxx, she wouldn’t correct the teacher, or insist on being called Lady xxx.

For the purposes of a school trip, if it were me, I wouldn’t feel the need to correct the teacher.

Apart from actual medical doctors, I mean

Actual medical doctors may not hold an actual doctorate, as explained by a pp. Thus for them the title is often an honorific. And if they are a surgeon rather than a physician or a GP, they might find being called "Dr" offensive, for the reasons I explained above. There are distinct differences between medicine as practised by physicians and surgery as practised by surgeons, although the general public do have a tendency to conflate them and call everyone "Dr".

It's unclear to me why someone who has gained a PhD and who through doing so has a legal right to use the title "Dr" somehow has less right to use the title Dr outside of work than a physician or surgeon does outside of work. Unless there's just some inverse snobbery going on. Because I think you'll find a physician might not want to be consulted as a clinician all the time. And a surgeon won't necessarily thank you for calling them Dr, whether it's in or out of work.

I'm a Dr (academic, not medical) and use it professionally and in some formal contexts where I know it will have clout. Day to day I don't bother, to the extent that people can know me socially for quite a while without realising.

I live in a country with a marital status-neutral title for all women and I (though married) would hate being called Mrs (or Miss, for that matter) and hate it every time someone does when I am in the UK or I get it on correspondence (or someone here decides unnecessarily to speak English to me and calls me Mrs due to a misapprehension that it is equivalent to said neutral title). I won't be defined by my marital status when my husband is not. In that situation (in which I presume first names are not an option) I would probably say quietly 'actually, it's Dr'. It may also be good in terms of role-modelling when in a context with children, like on the school trip, in case any of them are carrying around the notion that women can't be Drs of whatever variety.

I would ask that they use it for the sole purpose of showing kids that there are people who are doctors outside of the medical world.
I feel very strongly about the Women In Science movement and do what I can to show girls that women and mums can have successful careers in science.
Yup...might look like I'm on a crusade but it's worth it.

Plant the seed when they're young.