Hmm, so you’d also be in favor of “Mr Pleonast & Mrs Wisewoman” if we didn’t have PhD’s. Then it doesn’t sound like we’re a couple. It’s these ambiguities and funny constructions that make me prefer dropping formalities entirely.
Woohoo! Post Number 100!
I would. What’s the alternative? “Mr & Mrs Pleonast and Wisewoman”? I’ve never seen that used.
The fact that you’re on the same invitation card shows that you’re a couple. Otherwise you’d get two cards.
I also have to chime in and second Pantellerite’s comment that the use of “Dr.” among PhDs does not necessarily correlate negatively with the quality of the school or program, contrary to another poster’s experience.
That said, when my fellow graduates and I call each other “Dr.” it is always followed with snickering and knee-slaps, but in professional settings it is not uncommon to hear the title used. I believe it is the position of my university (which isn’t exactly fly-by-night) that I would be entitled to use this form of address.
I would say this isn’t true in tax law, where it’s pretty standard both to have the LLM and to note it on one’s business card. (In fact, I think some of the larger firms now require an LLM to practice in the tax department.) But LLMs in other areas don’t count for very much, from what I’ve seen. In some cases they’re viewed as “I couldn’t get a job after graduation so I thought I’d stay in school another year.”
Every LL.D. I’ve seen has been honorary. The S.J.D., while an enormous amount of work, isn’t really required for anything and appears to be (marginally) useful only if you’re planning on heavy-duty academia. I know my law school conferred about one a year.
I apologize to the moderator if my OP has become a “Great Debate” instead of a General Question, but I wasn’t sure where to post it—it was my first.
I guess I should have been more specific. I’m not really interested in WHO is called Doctor.
As far as I’m concerned, my brother’s physician friends are pompous about their title.
As more background:
I work at a university and we have speakers come in to give talks. Faculty, staff, and students sometimes get to meet these speakers before or after their talks in small groups.
A few weeks ago, I was at one of these small discussions. One theme among the Ph.D.s that had worked (as post-docs) at medical schools that seemed to be common (and, I’ve heard this before) was that the M.D. students that had to get research experience in a lab treated them like the hired help.
They all had stories. One was that this post-doc was explaining to a med student the principles behind an ELISA and showing him how it was performed when the phone rang. The med student said to the post-doc: “why don’t you get that, I’m expecting a call.”
The post-doc was dumbfounded, he said he was like: “you’re one year from your bachelor’s and you expect me to get the phone for you when it rings and I’m wasting time from my research to show this in the first place”?
After this story (and others) at this discussion, I mentioned my brother’s friends. One of the speakers then made the: “A Ph.D. is the higher degree…a M.D. can’t confer a Ph.D., but not [vice versa]” comment.
At the time of this discussion, these post-docs have become leading researchers in their fields (if they were not, they probably would not have been invited speakers at a major university [but, you never know]).
Zut explained with links that there is a difference between who is on a dissertation committee and who grants the degree from the “Graduate School” or whatever it calls itself at whatever legit school.
I ‘get’ that degrees are granted by institutions, NOT by individuals like a faculty advisor. Believe me, I had to jump through some hoops because one of my non-faculty committee members had allowed his standing to expire during the completion of my graduate degree.
I’m still left with that mysterious statement about Ph.D.s conferring M.D., but not M.D.s conferring Ph.D.s.
And although it’s the institution that grants degress, who does the institution need to sign diplomas?
I think that perhaps the speaker was wrong. All I can assume is that he means that the PhD is an academic degree and the MD is a professional degree. Many (though not all) medical schools affiliate themselves with a university and assume its academic mantle somewhat, whereas the reverse is never true. I mean, you never see a PhD program try to affiliate itself with a hospital.
Or perhaps he means that Medical schools employ a lot of MD/PhDs on the faculty. I dunno.
I think the PhD is the “higher” degree in the academic sense, but given the intensive training required for MDs and the high esteem they enjoy in society, I’d have a hard time arguing that PhDs were “above” MDs.
Regents or Trustees, as a board, are the ones who “officially” confer degrees and frankly, their academic qualifications aren’t always stellar as they may be chosen for their wallets. So you can’t really say that PhDs confer any degree. The faculty determine degree requirements and declare who has fulfilled them, in essence putting candidates (at any level, in any program) forward for degrees, but ultimately it is the board which confers them, in conjunction with the highest academic officer of the university (the provost, or dean, or whatever).
Thanks, Cranky–I guess that some Ph.D.s are just as full of themselves and their degrees as some M.D.s.
A PhD is an accademic degree–it prepares one to do research and to work in academia. Since medical schools are academic institutions, their senior faculty and adminstration (president, dean, etc.) often (always?) have PhDs. The head of a university will almost universally have a PhD. It’s the degree you want if you are going to teach. That a PhD will usually head a school, and hence sign a degree has nothing to do with which is “higher”. It’s just what PhDs do. An MD can prescribe drugs for a PhD, but not vice versa. So what? It’s just different jobs.