Say that Harold Butz, Urologist, gets sick of all the jokes about how he should have gone into proctology and decides to change his name to Richard Dock to more accurately reflect his profession.
Can he do it?
How about female physicians that get married? Can they hyphenate or change their last name completely?
Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Why couldn’t they?
I suppose I should have added that I have they couldn’t somewhere. I wondered if it was true and why that kind of rule would be in place (if it exists).
One reason they might not be able to change their name is the licensing issue to be able to practice medicine. I don’t think this would actually prevent a physician from changing his or her name, but just add another layer to the process. If Harold Butz wanted to practice medicine with his new name of Richard Dock, he would have to show legal proof to the medical board that he is indeed the person who earned his medical degree as Harold Butz.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Sue thread. Glad to have you “back”.
I have hear this one too. If I remember right it was in Michael Crichton’s book A Case of Need. As Crichton is an MD you would think he would know. Of course the book was written in 1968 so things may have changed.
My OB-GYN changed her name when she got married. For a while her name was hyphenated, but she eventually dropped her maiden name completely on her business cards.
An Alberta doctor recently changed his name to Deeth to more accurately reflect the pronunciation of the original spelling, “Death”.
My sister faced this issue when she was getting married. From what she told me, you can only practice under the name under which you were licensed (this was in Pennsylvania). Since she planned to change her name when she married, she decided to get married before she graduated, rather than the June wedding she had planned.
My sister might have been in the grips of an UL, but if so, it is widespread in the medical profession. I know several female doctors who practice under their maiden name and live the rest of their lives under their married name. This can be a royal pain when trying to track them down at the hospital.
Sua
A little searching turned up this name change request form for the Maryland Board of Physician Quality Assurance. And this one for the New York State Office of the Professions. The process seems pretty straight forward.
Sua, I just found this page on Pennsylvania’s State Board of Medicine website that mentions name changes. All you need is an offical document showing the name change.