Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 35 36 37 38 39 40

Original poster

To sign up at the surgery as ‘Dr’

999 replies

Chocolatebutton43 · 11/11/2020 20:11

I got my PhD two months ago, moved to a new place and signed up to a new doctor’s surgery and dental practice.

Filling in the forms, I got a bit carried away with my new title and ticked the ‘dr’ box! I’ve been doing it a lot lately for silly little things partly ‘cause I’m just happy to have finished and passed my degree and also because I relish that I am no longer defined by my marital status.

But, I now need to visit the surgery and I feel like an idiot. The form also had occupation so the doctor will know I’m not a medical doctor. Is he/she going to think I am a total prat for using Dr outside my work and at the doctor’s surgery of all places? Cringe

OP posts:

SueEllenMishke · 15/11/2020 12:18

Lots of people on this thread have complained they are not seen as ‘real’ doctors because they have a PhD!

No, it's just that we're using a wider definition of 'doctor' than you.
You seem to think that only medical doctors have the right to use that title - and we are talking title here, not occupation.

MilerVino · 15/11/2020 12:45

My opinion of academics has plummeted thanks to this thread.

I'm just disappointed and somewhat depressed that on a forum mainly for women, women are being castigated for using a title they earned through hard work and study. It's only really in the last 100-150 years that women have been able to achieve this level of education with any frequency and yet apparently celebrating by the simple act of picking 'Dr' on a drop-down form is now 'showing off'.

I don't introduce myself as 'Dr Vino'. But if asked for a title I do say 'Dr'. Occasionally, someone being social and wanting to talk more will make the assumption that I'm a clinician. I simply explain that it's a PhD not an MD, and that's that. No-one has ever, in 20 years, asked me to investigate a medical condition of theirs. If people are confused, I tend to think that by explaining that I have a PhD, I'm just widening the pool of people who understand when it's OK to use the title 'Dr'.

As for this being showing off? Well, fuck that shit. I have a doctorate and I'm proud of that fact. If you think that's showing off, that is very much your problem, not mine.

CheetasOnFajitas · 15/11/2020 12:51

@RattleOfBars I said:

several academics on this thread have told stories about medical doctors making that very joke to them

You asked: And did they find it funny or offensive when the joke was on them?

So you’re suggesting that at some point somebody said to the medical doctor “ha ha you’re not a real doctor, that’s only for people with PhDs”. Medical doctor found this deeply offensive, yet decided it would be funny to joke around with the next academic they met by drawing attention to a distinction that had caused them offence? Okaay.

You then went on to say

Lots of people on this thread have complained they are not seen as ‘real’ doctors because they have a PhD!

I have not read any posts as saying that. I think you may have read what you wanted to see.

Times of posts and relevant text please?

LouJ85 · 15/11/2020 13:01

As for this being showing off? Well, fuck that shit. I have a doctorate and I'm proud of that fact. If you think that's showing off, that is very much your problem, not mine.

Well said. It says more about the person judging you as a "show off" than it does about you. It doesn't take a psychologist to figure that out either

TheKeatingFive · 15/11/2020 13:17

As for this being showing off? Well, fuck that shit. I have a doctorate and I'm proud of that fact. If you think that's showing off, that is very much your problem, not mine.

Yep, totally agree.

Getting a PhD was the hardest thing I ever did. I’ll mark that how I like thanks.

LouJ85 · 15/11/2020 13:17

I don't understand the issue around the title being misleading either. I've literally never had a problem with this. On the odd occasion it's been commented on by someone outside of a work context "oh so you're a Doctor?", a reply of "yes, in clinical psychology" usually clears up any potential for misunderstanding within a matter of seconds. It then tends to lead into a conversation whereby the other party shows interest in my career... "oh really, interesting, what does that involve then?" Etc. I've literally never had anyone respond with "well that was a bit misleading wasn't it! I thought you were a medic! What a dick move using your title". I think I must live in a different world to other people 😂

CheetasOnFajitas · 15/11/2020 13:26

I wonder if Dr Martin Luther King ever got shit for making people think he knew how to treat ingrowing toenails?

bluebluezoo · 15/11/2020 13:31

I wonder if Dr Martin Luther King ever got shit for making people think he knew how to treat ingrowing toenails?

Yeah maybe all those people turned up for a medical consultation and were confused when it was just some bloke making a speech...bit of a dick move that pretending to be a doctor to get everyone there under false pretences...

Aoki · 15/11/2020 13:34

Be prepared for people to keep asking you about their in-growing toenails/sore throats/infected piercings and explaining over and over you’re not a medical doctor! Or rolling their eyes at you when you say you’re a Doctor of Dance Studies not medicine

But it’s their own ignorance that is apparent here. The embarrassment of realising that they foolishly thought every ‘Dr’ is to do with Medicine is all theirs.

DiseasesOfTheSheep · 15/11/2020 14:06

I literally give zero fucks if someone wants to roll their eyes at me for using my correct title when I have a PhD and am not a medic. That says a lot more about them than me, and there's no reason for me to be embarrassed about it. If someone mistakes me for a medic and is politely corrected, there's no reason for them to be embarrassed either. It's accentuates the ridiculousness of the anti-intellectual argument on this thread that this is considered by some to be a real and valid reason for educated women to describe themselves by marital status rather than their genuine achievements in life.

I've also had the "you're the real doctor" line for many medics, and I've never met one offended by my use of my title because they've all been perfectly assured of their own self worth regardless.

SpillingTheTea · 15/11/2020 14:11

The dentist I work in they all get referred to as Dr (First & Last Name). We have patients come in who use Dr too. It isn't cringey.

PigletJohn · 15/11/2020 14:38

@CheetasOnFajitas

I wonder if Dr Martin Luther King ever got shit for making people think he knew how to treat ingrowing toenails?

In US it seems to be normal for ministers of religion to grant themselves imaginary honorary doctorates.

In UK you occasionally see a Doctor of Divinity, typically an Anglican Archbishop.

NerrSnerr · 15/11/2020 14:46

In US it seems to be normal for ministers of religion to grant themselves imaginary honorary doctorates.

He has a PhD from Boston University.

PigletJohn · 15/11/2020 14:56

and do all the others?

ErrolTheDragon · 15/11/2020 15:29

I think I must live in a different world to other people

I think someone on this thread might, but it's not you.

LouJ85 · 15/11/2020 15:53

@ErrolTheDragon

I think I must live in a different world to other people

I think someone on this thread might, but it's not you.

Siepie · 15/11/2020 15:54

I wonder if your GP brother thought it was a pleasant joke too? A lot of medical doctors would find that very offensive. They are doctors by occupation, PhD academics are not.

Did you miss that it was a medical doctor who made the joke? Most doctors are confident enough in their own position not to be offended by other people having the same title as them.

My wife is a medical doctor and I'm an academic in a completely non-medical field. We will happily book things as Dr & Dr. Who the 'real doctor' is has been an ongoing joke for our entire marriage. I promise she's not offended.

cautiouscovidity · 15/11/2020 15:57

@Twinkie01

My friends husband is a Dr an astrophysicist, he had it on his passport and when someone was ill on a plane and he was really embarrassed when an airline steward asked him to help after looking at the manifesto.

This happened to a friend. She got bumped up to an earlier flight at check in once and put in first class. On boarding the gate staff said it was because they like to make sure they have a Dr on each flight. She didn't have the heart to tell them she was a Dr because she had a PhD in eco -toxicology and didn't have so much as a first aid qualification 😂

Janegrey333 · 15/11/2020 16:01

@Siepie

I wonder if your GP brother thought it was a pleasant joke too? A lot of medical doctors would find that very offensive. They are doctors by occupation, PhD academics are not.

Did you miss that it was a medical doctor who made the joke? Most doctors are confident enough in their own position not to be offended by other people having the same title as them.

Most doctors are confident enough in their own position not to be offended by other people having the same title as them.

Just as well.

Janegrey333 · 15/11/2020 16:09

@SpillingTheTea

The dentist I work in they all get referred to as Dr (First & Last Name). We have patients come in who use Dr too. It isn't cringey.

My previous dentist, who has since retired - at a youngish age because he and his partner & wife were loaded - was always referred to when booking as Mr Surname.

The new, much younger version is chatty and informal and astonishingly referred to by Reception by his first name!!

I have never heard of a UK dentist using Dr. I always thought that was a US thing.

Janegrey333 · 15/11/2020 16:20

Well, fuck that shit. I have a doctorate...

Impressive.

TheKeatingFive · 15/11/2020 16:23

Impressive

Are you suggesting it isn’t?

Janegrey333 · 15/11/2020 16:24

@TheKeatingFive

Impressive

Are you suggesting it isn’t?

You are rather missing the point.

TheKeatingFive · 15/11/2020 16:26

Well explain it then.

Janegrey333 · 15/11/2020 16:28

More interested in your attempt to grapple with it.

Flip

1 2 ··· 35 36 37 38 39 40