In the movie, “Something The Lord Made” Mos Def plays Vivien Thomas, the true story of a man who started out as a carpenter for a Doctor, who later became a lab assistant in the late 50’s and early 60’s.
In his later years, the real man, Vivien Thomas learned so much about the medical field by working with other Doctors that he was awarded a Doctorate by Johns Hopkins without going to formal schools. His education was more so, “hands on” for lack of a better word.
My question is this, how often has this happened to other people in the U.S. and if it has happened to other people, to whom has it happened?
IIRC, his doctorate was honorary, and it was not an MD, but something more mundane (like Doctor of Letters or something.) Honorary doctorates are pretty common, particularly for a famous alumnus.
Still, according to wiki, he was appointed to a faculty position at an elite medical school. Which is in many ways more prestigious than receiving a doctorate of medicine would have been.
My time at the Hop overlapped with Dr. Thomas’, and he was widely respected by numerous docs that he’d helped to train (Many of which went on to be heads of Surgery at many prestigious locations).
He retired before I did my surgical rotations, so I never got to count him as one of my teachers, sadly.
It was misleading in the sense that for people who don’t know what an honorary degree is/was are made to believe that he is a legit Doctor without having any official schooling, such as myself. Therefore, yes, it is misleading. The movie should have stated what an Honorary Degree was/is IMO.
Both the Royal College of Surgeons (UK) and the American College of Surgeons award honorary Fellowships which “count” the same as the regular ones - although since they’re generally awarded to non-Fellows who are already practicing surgeons, it’s not quite the same thing.
The usual route to a fellowship is a series of exams (UK) and certain practice requirements.
The movie doesn’t need to explain every single thing that the audience might or might not know. It was probably full of words (“pulmonary,” “artery,” “vein,” “cardiac,”) that any given person might not know the meaning of. If you didn’t know the meaning of the word “honorary,” well, you could look it up.
To add to the fun, the entry level medical degrees for physicians in European or UK systems aren’t actually doctorates.
In the UK, the usual initial degrees are M.B.(Bachelor of Medicine) or M.B.B.S.(Bachelors of Medicine and Surgery).
There are master and doctoral level medical degrees, but they usually require more study.
In the US and a few other places, the entry level medical degree for a physician is an M.D. (Doctor of Alleopathic Medicine) or a D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) - they’re both real medical degrees.
Just to muddy things up a bit more, having a degree, honorary or otherwise, is not the same thing as a license to practice medicine. One is awarded by the university, the other by the state. In nursing, at least, your degree merely entitles you to take the states test.
