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.

Are you talking about as a colleague or as a client?

I wouldn't use anyone's first name unless I was specifically introduced to them that way.

But I'm old.

I agree,

And I'm quite happy to use titles or honorifics to people who are specialists in their fields. They've earned them

Not to mention it gives me some clue as to who they are professionally. I'd like to know if I'm speaking to the consultant/surgeon/senior nurse whomever.

Especially as uniforms don't really show that anymore (unless you know what all the colours mean)

I’m a consultant surgeon and Introduce myself as first name surname , consultant surgeon.

I use Miss as my title , sometimes get Ms and don’t really care. Patients call me First name, Dr First name , Miss surname etc

Interestingly there has been some debate that we should all go back to Dr X to differentiate ourselves from physicians associates and ACPs who are not Dr.

To complicate things further I am Miss X at work and Mrs Y at home. Makes answering the phone a pain

Surgical Dr are Miss or Mr
Medical ie non invasive are Dr

Teachers too.

Why Mrs? Surely you would default to Ms if you don't know her preferred title?

I’ve found the points about flattening the hierarchy in the nhs interesting and have been thinking about this. I joined the nhs in 2003 as a student midwife. It was still very traditional, students pretty much did not speak unless spoken to. Consultants were quite scary (to me), labour ward coordinators were terrifying. The whole structure was like being in the army. Ward managers would shout at you for the slightest transgression. Obviously not great.

Im aware of all the research about human factors and more junior staff being scared to speak up when they can see something is going wrong. There has been a lot of training around that and I think everyone is aware of the case of Elaine Bromiley. I’m now a lecturer (my students call me by my first name btw) and I show them the video her husband made and we discuss this and how we must speak up.

At the trust where I worked (and still do bank) I certainly don’t see the managers or consultants as scary any more. I don’t think that’s just due to me being more senior but things have improved to try and make it more of a team …….so joint training days, risk meetings, etc.

However the consultants are still referred to as Mr or Miss and not by their first name. I’m friends with some of them on fb, if I see them out of work I will call them by their first name but at work I call them by their surname. I remember one new consultant had previously been an SHO with us so we all had to adapt to calling him by his surname. But there was a genuine conversation amongst the midwives that we must do so, so that the more junior doctors and med students respected him in the same way they would any other consultant. This was fairly recently so I do think there is still that notion of hierarchy being needed and I don’t know if that’s right or wrong.

Because I do understand that would an sho be less likely to challenge a consultant if there is hierarchy. But I think there’s a feeling that also a more junior member of staff might not do what they should if there isn’t a slight fear of more senior staff……but I get that’s probably outdated.

As a band 6 midwife I was certainly happy to challenge registrars and have stopped them doing things before. I don’t think I’ve ever had to challenge a consultant but would like to think I would do if necessary. I do think even with the Mr/Miss we can still have a good respectful relationship in both directions. I’ve had more than one consultant ask me my opinion on what I think needs doing for a woman in labour, they recognise we have a lot of experience and as midwives spend a lot of time in the room with a woman before getting a doctor in.

We were visiting a castle near here years ago with FIL and met the owner, a marquess, in the courtyard (not that I'd have known him, he told us). FIL actually took his cap off. I have never seen him do that for anyone else. It was an eye-opener.

I'm a consultant ( a surgical consultant), and can confirm the above is absolutely spot on.

Everyone does a medical degree and gets to use the Honorific title of Dr (even though the degree is technically described as a Bachelor level degree of 'Medicine and Chirurgie' MB ChB). People training to be surgeons do their MRCS exam (usually after foundation year, but before higher specialty training , ST3) and revert to Mr/Miss .

I work in a hospital and half the doctors prefer to go by their first name even to patients I introduce them as 'Richard' as that's what he wants.

What's ACP?

And it should definitely be clear if you're being treated by a physician associate

Yep, that’s how I introduce myself too. First name, surname, consultant nephrologist.

I have heard stories from patients about PAs misleading people about their roles - no idea how true that is, we don’t have PAs in our department, and honestly despite having a big sign on my door, making a point of introducing myself as a consultant, wearing a stethoscope and big yellow name badge etc, I still have some patients who can’t imagine a senior doctor could ever be female and decide I must really be a nurse. Or “I assumed you must be Dr Saschka’s secretary” - said to me during a clinic appointment, during which I’d examined them and prescribed new tablets. So any misunderstanding about roles may not be deliberate misleading on the part of the PA.

Advanced Care Practitioner. Would include ENPs in A&E, ANNPs in NICU, CNSs in specialist clinics, advanced care physios, extended role paramedics, prescribing pharmacists, etc etc.

Mr. Although I just call them by their full name as it makes me feel like a kid calling someone Mr.

In the medical field yes, which is what OP is referring to, however in the world of PhD's Dr is not a lesser title at all (in fact it's a highly regarded title).

So is it right that jf you are a surgical registrar, you are a Mr/Mrs/Ms? You don’t have to be a consultant, but you do have to be a surgical specialist?

Funny that it’s left over from days gone by when surgeons were ‘just’ barbers and not doctors. I wonder at what point this started and you had to go to medical school to be a surgeon, so would then go from Mr to Dr to Mr again?! (Or Mrs!)

FGS @TomatoSandwiches don't encourage surgeons to think they have greater status than us mere non-surgical consultants! Their egos can be hard enough to manage at the best of times.

Consultant anaesthetist, I usually go for Dr First Name Surname, Consultant Anaesthetist but that's because loads of people don't even realise we are doctors!

@Daffodildilys it's obstetricians/ gynaecologists in Scotland who use Dr whereas their English counterparts use Mr/Ms. No idea how this came about.

I spend a lot of time flattening hierarchy in theatre, at our pre-list briefing it's very unusual for anyone to use anything other than their first name these days amongst other staff.

I do try to call my colleagues Dr (or Mr/Ms) Surname when I refer to them while talking to patients but don't always remember. TBH in a children's hospital most of us get called by our first names. However, I do work with a female surgical prof and I ALWAYS introduce her to her patients as Prof Surname. She is lovely and modest and has worked really hard for her academic role and I think it's important that people know she is a Prof (also role modelling for our patients, women can be professors too!).

This is incorrect.

In Medicine doctor is not a lesser title.

Mr/Miss as has been posted repeatedly now, refers to a surgeon who has passed their Royal College exams.

It does not mean Consultant and doesn't mean superior to all those other consultants who aren't surgeons.

My post was referring to the non-medical field.

Consultant Surgeons/registrars are Mr, Mrs, Miss/Ms

Medical consultants/registrars are Doctor.

I believe it’s a throwback to when barbers were surgeons, or something! (I recall being told this when I started working in a hospital , back in the late 80’s😊)

All surgical registrars, all surgical consultants and some surgical SHOs.

You become a Mr/Ms when you pass all of your MRCS exams, which can be at any point between graduation and applying for higher surgical training (registrar-level training). I knew quite a few who took MRCS part 1 as a house officers (FY1 equivalent), as it made them more competitive for surgical SHO posts.

Incorrect. Non-surgical consultants are Dr.

AFIK, regardless of their profession, it's incorrect to call anyone "Sir" if you know their name, or at least their surname. "Sir" (or the female equivalent "Madam") is the polite term of address for a person whose name is unknown to you. Otherwise it's "Mr/Dr/Ms/Mrs Carson" etc. using their preferred title, obviously. This was something my school was very strict on; we had to address teachers as e.g. "Mr Foster" , "Mrs Harrison" etc, unless it was one of the nuns, in which case it was Sister plus first name e.g. Sister Margaret. No Grange Hill style "Sir" or "Miss", that was incorrect, and simply wouldn't have been acceptable.

But in this circumstance if you didn't know the surgeons name and the majority here say you don't call a surgeon a doctor would you say its correct to call them sir?