AIBU - use of ‘Dr’ title - is this normal?!

[Cheesecake45]

Just not sure if I need to get with the times or not - is it normal to go by the title ‘Dr’ simply for having a PhD, if you aren’t in the medical profession? I’m talking one of the easiest PhDs to get (comparatively speaking), nothing vaguely linked to medicine.

AIBU??
YES = this is totally normal get over yourself
NO = wouldn’t be caught dead calling myself a doctor unless I could be assistance in a medical emergency!

You don't see the irony?

It's like going up to strangers and saying "I'm really academic and I think it's important that you know so you can be impressed"

I'm the least academic person in my family and am surrounded by medical Doctors and Doctors with PhDs and I'm the one everyone comes to for advice. I'm not convinced being a Doctor or a Doctor is that reliable as a sign of high intelligence. 😅. I'm not sure I'm joking. I know they've all worked extremely hard and I know they are all really clever and, I am, proud of them but sometimes.....🤦🏻‍♀️

You seem to be mistaking “correct title” for “title they are permitted to use”.

Someone with a PhD who refers to themselves as “Ms.” or “Mr.” is not using an incorrect title.

It's like going up to strangers and saying "I'm really academic and I think it's important that you know so you can be impressed"
Perfectly put.

Except it's not.
I give my title and name when it's required, just like every other person. It's just a title I happen to have earned, and is no indication of how superior or not anyone might be. It makes absolutely no difference to you.

Again, except it really isn't.
Why do you even care? It makes absolutely no difference to you.

They haveore right to the title than a medic who is a bachelor of medicine.

People with PhDs have doctorates and have every right to the title doctor. Their qualification is literally Doctor of Philosophy
( For the record. I don't have one).

@HangryOliveMentor , @FlickDrink

ahh just get over it. Go do a PhD if you are that bothered. A PhD is a JOB. A job that gives you a qualification. Lots of people do them, they become Dr instead of Mr or Mrs and it does not make them ‘better’.

The studied, super casual bitchiness or the desperate slagging off is doing nothing other than making you look absolutely green with jealousy over something which really doesn’t matter.

You seem a bit confused . No one who has a PhD thinks it’s the same as an MBChB. They are different degrees - the first confers the title of Dr and holders of the second often use Dr as a courtesy title. Unless they are surgeons in which case they use Miss, Ms, Mrs or Mr,

The correct job title of who you are referring to as “ doctors “ is “ medical practitioner”.

Yes! Or even just a woman fullstop. My main motivation for doing a PhD was for the title so I didn't have to deal with the Ms/Mrs/Miss rubbish!

There are lots of things that make little difference to me but that I still have opinions on.

You keep insisting that you’re just using your “correct” title but it isn’t your “correct” title; it is a title you can use if you choose to.

And it remains my view that people who choose to use a title they have earned, outside of any context where it could possibly be relevant, are doing so out of arrogance and vanity.

In my experience the Dr title is used professionally but not in everyday life.

It's so weird to think less of someone because they attained a high level of academic achievement and gained a title associated with it.

Why do we sneer at academic achievement and pride in it so much?

I dont have a PhD but I definitely admire those who do.

The vast majority of the public associate the title Dr with a medical doctor. I have a degree but I’m not familiar with PhD’s etc… I know that graduates can refer to themselves as Drs but given then public perception, anyone other than a medical doctor using the title is imo is pretentious and trying to portray something they aren’t.

Jo public doesn’t care what PhD you have. In the world of academia it’s fine to use it but to reserve a hotel, it’s just pretentious. I would never put out itsmeeeee BSc hons 2:1 because it would embarrassing!

It remains incorrect that using an earned title is arrogant or vain.
It is quite arrogant to diminish someone else's right to use an earned title though.

BSc Hons is letters after the name.
PhD is letters after the name OR the title Doctor/Dr.
The two are slightly different.

@pensione
Do you value the medical research leading to the drugs and treatments your "doctors" prescribe when you are unwell?

Because all that research will have been done or led by Chemists, Biochemists, Physicists and a myriad of other disciplines, with those shitey unvaluable PhDs.
Indeed many of the treatments you have had or will have, will have been researched by those rubbish kid on doctors doing research whilst in pursuit of their rubbishy pointless doctorate.

I’d say that the most arrogant thing is dismissing someone’s opinion, on something that is clearly a value judgment, as “incorrect”.

Richard Feynman and James Simons would be Dick and Jim.
It's ok to use the title in the field/situation it was earned, but odd to use it in general interactions.
Being asked to help a person in medical distress in a restaurant or a plane because you insisted on the prefix is enough for most of the PhDs I know to avoid using it publicly.

That's what you're doing. 🤣🤣🤣

No, it is not.

You seem to be failing to appreciate the difference between opinions and facts.

When my son set up his bank account a few years ago - changing it from a child's savings to a student one - he put himself down as "Lord", thinking it was a laugh. He was 16 at the time, and everything from the bank arrives addressed to "Lord [first/last names]". He's 19, thinks it's funny still...

I have earned the right to use 'Prof' in front of my name, and a whole slay of letters after it... I don't, because I think it's pretentious as fuck, tawdry, and yes, I broke my back working towards it (was completing my PhD with above 19 year old strapped to my chest as a literal newborn, in a specialist subject that my research sources had to be on loan through the uni library from America... it was an experience, shall we say?), but that doesn't mean that I feel the need to explain what it's in, what's the difference between 'Dr' and 'Prof', why I did it at all, to all and sundry.

My 27year old has an undergraduate degree that she worked hard for, went through a lot of diabolical MH situations and her uni weren't supportive in the slightest - she uses BA(hons) after her name... because she's entitled to do so.

We're all of us different @Cheesecake45

@Itsmeeeeee
What's embarrassing is somebody claiming to have a 2 (1) (busily making sure we I know it wasn't a 2(2)), who isn't familiar with PhDs.

You couldn't have been up to much if PhDs weren't even on your radar when graduating.

It's a fact that it's appropriate for someone with a PhD to call themselves Dr.
It's your opinion that it's not.
The fact matters here more than your completely ill informed opinion, because your opinion doesn't matter. All it does is highlight your issues.

I think it really is true that there is more than one type of intelligence.

Sometimes those who can analyse very complicated abstract material or see patterns and rationalise apparently disparate pieces of information are not actually very good with every day tasks at all. And as @AnotherCrazyOldCatLady has been at pains to point out, often these skill sets do not translate into high earning potential. But like bees in a hive we all have our uses; and if the hyper academic types are not getting their reward in flash cars like catlady so luxuriates in, why deny them the luxury of titular acknowledgment? I can only really think it’s envy. But we are none of us all things to all people. Some of us need to keep the practical balls in the air while others among us push the boundaries in research. Why we can’t all just be kind and respectful of each other’s roles is a mystery. I wonder if bees so dislike and demean each other…