You’ve completely sullied my memories of Gomer Pyle.
As a physician, I’m ok with someone calling me doc. I don’t see anything rude about it. I’m also ok with Doctor TheBlue, Flik, or TheBlue. Dr. Flik, however, seems odd to me and would grate one my nerves.
I find that rather odd, unless your surname really is “TheBlue.” 
Only in the world of Japanese RPGs 
“Dr (insert first name)” seems more common among pediatricians, including the antivax kind - for instance, :“Dr. Bob” Sears and “Dr. Jay” Gordon.
I have apparently been awarded knighthood by the eastern European customer service reps who work for T-Mobile. They habitually address me as “Sir Jackmannii”.* Maybe I should insist on being called “Doctor” when I call to gripe about problems.
*they profess to being named “Ashley” and “Jessica”, which seem like odd popular names for girls born in Moldavia and Kazakhstan.
I wanted to give our first child the first name “Senator” because it would assure a better table at restaurants. I was overruled.
Friend of mine taught me to call myself Doctor whenever I wanted to get through to someone to introduce myself on the phone. People usually avoid calls with someone they don’t know but they pick up the phone for Dr. Somebody.
I’ve always liked the idea of naming a daughter Lizard. Of course, she’d go by Liz. But every so often someone might inquire, “Oh, is that short for Elizabeth?” And she could answer, “No, Lizard.”
The Oklahoma Sooners have signed a quarterback named General Booty.
One of my colleagues wants to be called “Dr. B” by everyone.
I refer to her as Doctorb. The ‘b’ stands for bargain!
I got in this habit in residency, and then I went on vacation and called the front desk for some towels. “This is Dr. Lastname,” I said without thinking. They probably spit on my towels.
I have zero problem with “Doc”.
I slightly prefer “Dr. Lastname” from patients and residents, because it keeps me on task and reminds me of the job I’m there to do. But it’s also OK if they use my last name by itself, which is what almost everybody calls me these days in or outside of work. My wife and my immediate family are the only ones who still use my first name all that much, so it bugs me a little when patients try it.
I’m curious where you live, and whether using your last name is a personal quirk or something others near you do. Because I don’t know anyone who goes by their last name. I work in a huge multinational and the president is probably called Joe Smith more often than Joe, but no one calls him “Smith”, or even “Mr. Smith”. I don’t even know the last names of a lot of my friends-through-shared-hobbies.
Here is one physician’s take on the situation:
I also seem to remember reading a book about navigating serious/complex illness. In a chapter about the ‘best’ or ‘right’ way to deal with your physicians, it said something like: if you feel your situation is dire, and that your physician isn’t as engaged or serious about the circumstances (and how it’s all hitting you) as you might hope, calling them by their first name might ‘reinforce’ the notion that you are a person – a person who is scared – and tap into an extra measure of the physician’s humanity.
[eg, You might say, “Susan, I’m scared, and I’m not sure what the best option is here.”]
This is a paraphrasing at best, and I utterly don’t recall where I ran across the concept beyond how I introduced it.
One of my best friends is a retired surgeon. I suspect he’d agree with the doctor who wrote the linked paper. He’s always told me that (one doctor’s opinion only) physicians really don’t like to be controlled or dictated to.
But I think a tactical use of a first name, even if it was the first such use in a reasonably long doctor-patient relationship – said out of consternation or fear, and with humility and not a trace of disrespect or contempt (ie, not to be controlling) – could help a physician ‘break character’ in a tough moment.
ETA: the comments to that linked article are … interesting, too.
Wow, that guy jumped to a LOT of conclusions based on some guy using his first name:
There could be cultural differences I did not detect. There is the remote possibility that the son lacks the basic social grace to comprehend the inappropriate nature of his address. This seems unlikely, because he used “James” more often than others say “doctor,” as if he was making a point, but it is possible that instead of the word presenting a clue to deeper complexity, he might be clueless.
My first guess is that the guy is a salesman. At least, that’s the category of stranger who uses MY first name over and over. If he’s a salesman, he may just be in the habit of doing that. I think they are taught that people like to be addressed by name, even.
The majority of communication is non-verbal. If someone says something in a friendly tone, in a sarcastic way, rolls their eyes, gestures, etc. this can carry more weight than the words they use. Everyone knows this.
People who use “doc” tend to be either friendly, gregarious types informal with most people. This is fine. However, it can be used, less commonly, in a falsely informal way from someone trying to get something from you by implying a relationship that is not there. This is less good, and can be rude, but it’s not the mere word that makes it so.
I don’t know anyone who goes by their last name outside of work - but I’ve known loads of people who went by their last name at work , because in certain fields it’s very common. I worked for a relatively large state agency - the agency head was invariably referred to as “Smith” , I identified myself on phone calls/voicemails/texts within the agency using just my last name , and there were people I knew for years whose first name I never knew. Sometimes it’s only common in part of a field - since this thread is about about doctors, it’s possible that say ER doctors normally go by their last name but pediatricians in private practice do not.
I guess it varies by field.
when I started, lo these many years ago, we tended to refer to higher-ups in the company as Mr. Smith. But today I was reading a note that referred to emails we recently got from the president and another top officer of the company, and it began, “I was heartened to get the emails from John and Bob this morning…”
A bare last name sounds very old fashioned to me, and makes me think of English Public Schools. And even “Mr. Smith” sounds oddly formal in most contexts. Like, if my plumber called me Ms. Lastname, I would be surprised and feel slightly awkward.
LOL !
One of my neighbors – a great guy – sells big-ticket (read: $$$$) stuff. I never hear my first name as much – in an average year – as in a 20 minute chat with him.
Yeah. It’s definitely a sales-y thing … in addition to whatever else it may be.
My doctors call me by my first name so I figure I can call them Doc or just about anything else I want.
Actually I don’t, except once, when it was intentionally to be humorous.
I live in a small town in rural Kentucky, and no, it’s not a local thing, just something that happened.
My first name is fairly common and boring, and it happens to be shared by someone else in the tight group of friends I’ve hung out with for the past 10-15 years. My last name, on the other hand, kind of rolls of the tongue. So those friends started calling me by my last name, and then other people picked up on it, and eventually it found its way to work (small town). After a while it became what people called me, and I kind of liked it, so I just went with it.