You have a point, but do you address stangers several decades younger than you by their given names without asking? Doing that, but expecting them to use a title in return is very condescending. I’ve never been bothered by nurses addressing me by my given name, but every single nurse (hell every non-doctor healthcare worker) I’ve met has introduced themselves by their first name. Even my physical therapist (who had a doctoral degree). It’s only doctors who insist on the use of their title & surname. Their egos are huge. It’s not the use of given names I object to, it’s using a given name, but still expecting people use your title in return (then getting indignant when they don’t). The fact that patients are also customers and not supplicants makes this even more annoying. My doctor didn’t just use my given name without asking, he lectured me me when I did it too him.
Holy crap.
You are being orders of magnitude more offensive than the girl using your first name. Get a grip.
Seeing as the GQ has been answered:
Bolding mine
Like Omniscient said.
I just don’t get this attitude at all.
If i’m introduced to someone in a social setting, and that person is 20 years younger than me, i’m happy for them to call me by my first name. If the person is 20 years older than me, i’m damn sure going to use their first name.
In your case, it’s not about age; it’s about the setting. In the doctor’s office, you’re not at a social gathering; you have a professional relationship with the doctor and the staff. In those cases, i think it’s a good idea for them to address you as Ms. Smith unless and until you tell them to call you by your first name.
But this should be the same whether you’re a 20-year-old patient or a 60-year-old patient.
After going through ongoing medical treatment for the past eight months, I’d like to chime in with another perspective.
Some of the minor indignities inflicted upon patients during the course of treatment (and usually these are necessary) sometimes leave us feeling somewhat vulnerable (strip from the waist down and put your feet in the stirrups, anyone? :)). One of the things that help remind me (personally) of my own worth, is to be addressed in a respectful manner of my choosing.
Living in the south, most of the medical professionals that I deal with address me as MissRed or MsLastname. Not a problem. I usually address them as whatever name they introduce themselves with (although if they are significantly older than me, there is a Mr. or Ms. in front of a first name out of habit). My PCP and I are Dr. Will and MissRed. Lends a bit of respect all around.
Oh, and IMO, the whole not using your title and last name was either office policy or CYA on the part of the person erroneously citing HIPAA.
My father once had a tantrum because he was called by his first name by a receptionist at a doctor’s office. IIRC he was in his late eighties at the time and he launched into a tirade about the ill mannered youth who had not been invited to use his given name and so forth. My sister had taken him to that doctor and she told me the story. He also left the office, saying he would find a doctor whose staff would treat him with the respect due a man of his age. My father was an absolute asshole and that is not an exaggeration.
As for me, I’m about as easy going as it gets----I want the staff in a doctor’s office to be my friends, especially if they are required to stick needles into me or do other unpleasant things. I’m especially nice to the staff in my dentists office as well as the dentist himself.
Perhaps this line can be instructive.
We should take etiquette advice from someone who casually tosses around the “asshole” epithet just because someone expresses a rather conventional preference for being addressed formally by patient service staff at their doctor’s office? I’m not so convinced.
If the preference is for formality in all cases, that’s one thing. But that’s not the case here. This is ageism and arrogance, and a fairly nasty case of it.
And to add a gripe about Doctor’s offices, they are all panicky about HIPAA, but then call you up the front desk to “check in”. You have to give them all your personal data, phone number, address, insurance company, etc., and then even the reason for your visit. Any one sitting within ten feet could hear it all.
I’ve been in about 6 different doctor’s offices in the last few months, and with one exception, they all did this interview style check in right in the waiting room, in easily hearable range of any number of people.
Why isn’t this a HIPAA violation?
The way I understand HIPAA, there are two reasons it wouldn’t be a violation. First and foremost, because they didn’t release any personal information, you released the information yourself. HIPAA only covers the healthcare workers, it doesn’t cover the patient themselves. You can tell everyone your own information without any trouble.
The second reason could be that they aren’t responsible if someone overhears them talking as long as they took “reasonable” precautions to prevent it. In the pharmacy environment that is basically a line on the ground, and talking quietly.
As in Like father, Like son?
People who call you by your first name are not trying to offend you, so why would you take it that way?
Can’t recall it right now, but I think there is a term for people who take offense where no offense is intended.
He didn’t calmly request that he be addressed as Mr. Surname–“he launched into a tirade.” The correct response to what one percieves as rudeness is politeness, not more rudeness. The man himself was breaking a major rule of the etiquette he allegedly so cherished.
My PCP is hispanic, and started out with everybody in the office being fairly formal and addressing me as MrsAru, but over the past 2 years of frequent visits we have gotten to be on first a name basis. My OB/GYN oncologist and his staff are new, and started out formally, but have gotten to also be on a first name basis as well over the past 4 months. If it does turn out to be cancer, we may be having a lot more contact that I would hope…
I think I prefer to be friendly with my medical staffers, I do my best to be polite and compliant as some of my procedures are rather unpleasant, and I find that I prefer to think of them as friends, who are not deliberately hurting me. Maybe it is just my area in Connecticut, or the luck of the draw, but all my medicos seem to be formal at the outset…
Although they do not come to the same conclusion as you, I think you have hit upon why familiarity really displeases some patients. As you mention, some of the necessary procedures are physically and psychologically painful (including, importantly, embarrassment). Embarrassment, which is a social reaction, is mitigated by interposing social distance, accomplished by insisting on formality.
I accurately described my father in my first post but I’ll add that the man was arrogant beyond belief. In any situation, he was right and the rest of the world was wrong. There is/was no excuse for his behavior.
No, as in your example draws parallels to the OP.
There is the major difference … I spent a fair amount of time in traction and a body cast … when you have to have someone else wipe your ass, your nose, turn the pages in the books you are reading, feed you and anything else you need to have done you lose the sense of embarrasment pretty damned quick 
I used to joke that I could take a dump in a bucket in Grand Central Station at rush hour … though one good thing came out of it all, I can sleep anywhere no matter how loud or bright or busy it is. I used to amaze people being able to fall asleep on the floor of an airport concourse using a sea bag as a pillow and half a poncho/shelter as a blanket. I also fell asleep on a gooney bird belonging to the Confederate air Force when my Dad and I were visiting Texas on business. Nothing like an airplane with an internal weather system =)
A few issues I see:
1a) People have wildly different ideas of how employees of a given establishment should treat them, and you can’t please 'em all. I hate being asked if I need help or how my day’s going 40 times every time I go to Safeway (and hated being told to do it when I worked at Cala), but some people apparently do need their ass kissed by every CS worker they come across. Not for me but I’m not going to get pissed when they do it*.
1a) Just because you get offended by something that’s not offensive doesn’t mean we should, or that they should plan for it.
- Just because someone is older doesn’t mean they deserve extra respect. Old people supposedly are wiser, but as the world shows over and over again, you can grow old and stay pretty stupid*.
*-Not saying either of these specifically applies to you, but I think these seems to be more where your opinions are coming from.