By calling a surgeon sir, or should I call him doctor?

[teaandcake32]

I am aware there is etiquette around addressing Dr's and surgeons.

Should you call a surgeon Mr ..........., what if you don't know his surname.

Would Sir be an insult? Would Dr be an insult?

Please help me find the correct terminology, wise women of Mumsnet.

Because if you are a woman you are frequently mistaken for anyone but the doctor

Eh? Consultants have to have frcs its their exit exam to become consultants

Many surgeons can have frcs and not be consultants (senior regs specialty drs or associate specialists) but not the other way round

Consultant is the highest status in our training path, you can't be a consultant "and not qualified yet" I don't think you understand the career path/structure

My gran was a nurse she said you only ever made the mistake of calling a Surgeon ‘Dr’ once.

Theres strong evidence of higher risk and safety issues in theatre environments where there are steep hierarchy as junior members of staff feel less empowered to speak up if there's something they know is wrong - like the case from decades ago whejnthe wrong kidney was removed, the medical student pointed it out mid op but was ignored as just a student

@ispecialiseinthis so you're suggesting that if you introduce yourself ' hello, I'm Ispecialise Inthis, I'm the/ a consultant in xxx, that people think you're the tea lady or something? Really?

Furthermore, you become a “Mr/Ms” after passing MRCS, the lower tier of exams. Which you have to pass as an SHO.

You cannot start registrar training without MRCS, so you certainly can’t become a consultant without it.

Yes. See my post earlier, where I told the tale of a patient who thought I was my own secretary, moonlighting in clinic. Despite introducing myself, having a big sign on the door, wearing a badge.

Some people cannot comprehend that women can be doctors and not just secretaries, nurses or tea ladies.

Omg. Well I'm sorry in that case. More to be pitied than blamed ( them) as my DGM would have said!

I called mine by his first name after I called him mr smith and he said oh call me John

And just to point out, I need surgery which will be rather complex - in fact, I have been told by a consultant Dr X, that I will need two surgeons. I am more than happy that I have now been passed on to another consultant, Mr Y. I have far more confidence that they have the surgical experience needed to make my surgery successful, because they have bothered to take the exams that prove they have a certain level of capability.
There are several possible explanations I can think of for this, but none of them is that Dr X is a Consultant Surgeon who hasn't done their exams.

1. Dr X is not a Consultant. S/he could be a junior doctor or a non Consultant career grade doctor who you mistakenly believe is a Consultant.
2. Dr X is a Consultant but not a surgeon. For example, a gastroenterologist who is a physician will be a Dr and they not infrequently work closely with their surgical equivalents and will refer patients to each other.
3. Dr X may have qualified in a different country where the convention is for Consultant Surgeons to be called Dr and s/he may prefer to stick with the title they are used to.
4. Dr X and Mr Y might both be gynaecologists, or a gynaecologist and maybe a general surgeon or a urologist. They will quite often work together and whilst quite a lot of gynaecologists call themselves Mr/Miss it's less common than in other surgical specialties. The Obs and Gynae department in the Trust I last worked in had about a 50:50 split between Consultants who called themselves Mr/Miss and those who preferred Dr but they had all passed their exams!

It's usually a nurse rather than the tea lady to be fair, but yes, despite introducing myself and wearing a badge I've been presumed to be a variety of things including a student, and a secretary and actually I have been asked to go for the tea on quite a number of occasions at meetings, sometimes when I have been one of the most senior clinicians present.

@AgeingDoc, it's 2. The first consultant is a trainee surgeon, the second is fully qualified. They both work in the same department.
(They are actually the third and fourth consultants I have dealt with for the same problem.) I'm glad you have realised the distinction I was making.

Incorrect

Traditionally Surgeons are Mr Lastname regardless of their rank. Medical Dr's are Dr last name again regardless of rank. Very junior staff still in training are all Dr, regardless of speciality. Most of them respond to either but their favourite is doyouwantacuppadoc.

Is that a typo, and you mean the first doctor is a trainee surgeon? So a junior SHO, if they haven’t passed MRCS?

There’s no such thing as a consultant who is also a trainee surgeon. A consultant is a fully qualified specialist. They may or may not be a surgeon, but if they aren’t, they are not training to become one. They are fully trained physicians (or anaesthesists, or whatever). A consultant gastroenterologist is not training to be a surgeon, they are two completely different career paths that diverge very early on.

Right, going to try to explain this as clearly as possible.

If you want to cut people open, you train as a surgeon. You start a surgical training scheme. Early on in that path, you take exams, and change your title to “Mr/Ms”. You are still a SHO (junior doctor). You continue training, and become a registrar (still a junior doctor). You take more exams. You are still Mr/Ms. You finish training and become a consultant. You are now a fully trained surgeon. You are still Mr/Ms.

If you don’t want to cut people open, you follow a different career path. You might want to be a physician (cardiologist, oncologist, etc), or an anaesthetist, or a psychiatrist. Either way, you enter a training scheme as an SHO and take exams. You remain “Dr”. You become a registrar. You are still “Dr”. You take more exams, finish training, and become a consultant. You are now a fully trained cardiologist, psychiatrist or whatever. You are still “Dr”. You will remain “Dr” until you retire. You are not, and have never been, training to be a surgeon. Surgeons are not your boss, and do not outrank you. They just work in a different area.

Please let this be the end of it.

Lawyers do this in court to colleagues: "Mr X" and "Ms Y" (if not, "my learned friend" or "my friend")

That's before you even get onto calling the judge, "my lord"...

Can I ask @Saschka what if you’re a neuro doctor that does neuro surgery? Or an obstetrician? What are they?

as a midwife I hear junior doctors call consultants ms/mr (sometimes), are they surgeons?

Is that really so hard to believe?
I have seen patients with male medical students (both of us dressed in scrubs) and despite introducing us and leading the consultation, the patients have addressed questions and queries to the med student rather than me, the consultant. It’s awkward having to answer questions that are directed at someone else.

Miss/Ms/Mr but they won’t mind if a patient gets it wrong.
I don’t think most would mind if another health professional gets it wrong either but it’s unlikely we would

What's the title for a lawyer

Or they may have elected to keep the title Dr!

The bottom line is that they get offended by a wrong title they are a twat.

BTW what happened to the Junior Doctor thread that has disappeared??

Can we please pin this post, it’s accurate and informative and cuts through the incorrect assumptions made throughout the thread.

@ispecialiseinthis so they are classed as surgeons also? Thanks. Our obs and gynae doctors are all first name basis to women and staff anyway (as it should be) but I know it’s not the case in other specialties