I suppose it’s the combination of the thread-starter’s username and the subject of the thread that has inspired me to de-lurk on the subject.
I work as an ER doc. In this specific field it is important to quickly establish a rapport with people I’ve never met and demonstrate to them what role I’ll play in the coming fireworks. This applies to patients and their families, paramedics, and others working within the hospital setting. No paramedic would give me a report if I introduced myself as “Big Steve”, nor would a patient be likely to admit to the foreign body lodged in his rectum. In clinical situations in which all are not acquainted the title quickly delineates one’s role, and more importantly demonstrates that I’m the one who will be responsible for what happens next.
Outside of clinical introductions, I can’t think of a situation in which I would want to be addressed as Doctor.
Anyway, I wasn’t advocating “Big Steve” (or even “Steve-O”, unless the person comes in unconscious, in which case “Steve-O” is acceptable).
If by “clinical introductions” you mean the first time you meet someone, professionally, you need him/her to know you are an MD, I am in complete agreement with this.
I’m glad you agree about “clinical introductions”.
I would also like to point out that nonclinical introductions can also be important.
When I was interviewing for my first job as an ERdoc I was walked through the ER, and a well experienced nurse introduced herself as “Firstname” and said “What shall we call you?”. I said my name is “Dead”, and she said “I’m glad you said that, or else you would have to call me Nurse Lastname”.
Yes, they are doctors too. And yes, many of them do get pissed when people say “But you’re not a real doctor.”
I think that most Ph.D.'s don’t insist on being called “Doctor.” However, in my opinion, it would be exceedingly rude to call them “Mister,” “Miss” or “Mrs.” I would never dream of doing such a thing.
My math teacher in college - bless the woman, she got me through a Pre-Calculus class with a B- after I failed the first test completely - was Dr. Sirjani - we all called her that. I still call her that. Actually, I’m meeting her again for the first time in 20 years, in a few weeks. Turns out she lives only a few miles away from me. I don’t know is I should call her what I called her then, when she was my professor…or if it’s okay to call her by her name now that I’m all growed up?
I disagree. IMHO, In the clinical settings I’ve worked in, professionalism is served best by retaining some degree of formality. And frankly, my nurses are the ones who tend to be even more insistant on retaining the structure I outlined than I am.
I’ve been dead-set against that philosophy since medical school. Back then in the clinics, I took to introducing myself as “Mr. Mercotan, I’ll be your medical student”. And in subsequent years, I’ve made sure all my students represent themselves as students, not doctors. It smacks too much of deceit, however one may present it, and as such, can poison what should be an open and honest relationship.
Which is why I game DoctorJ such a hard time here for his name, until he actually became a doctor!
Nothing – not even someone’s ego – requires you to call someone by a title. They may insist, but you may refuse.
The day that I realized that I didn’t have to use a title in addressing someone, then it ceased to become an issue with me.
Do any of you actually feel inferior to the people that you address as “Dr.”? If you do, then that is not the fault of the doctor or of society. Be responsible for your own feelings.
I’ve never considered the use of “Dr.” as an honorific unless the degree bestowed was an honorary degree.
I work in an ENT-surgery practice with seven doctors. From what I’ve observed, at least in our practice:
The doctors all call each other Dr. H, Dr. B, etc., in front of patients when referring to each other; i.e. “I’m going to refer you to Dr. B for a second opinion on this issue.”
They refer to each other in casual conversation by first name - but they’re business partners, at that point.
They refer to their patients (I think) mostly as Mr. or Ms. LastName unless the patient tells them otherwise, as do we in the office.
From my standpoint, I have a hard time referring to any of them by first name, rather than as Dr. B., etc. Dr. P. (for example) has come to the SF/Fantasy convention I help run to speak on a panel about scientific developments now in common use that began via the space program. I know FOR A FACT (after chatting with his wife) that he would prefer to be called Scott when he’s not at the office, but I can’t make myself do it yet because of the way I was raised. The most casual I get to the other women in the office is to refer to the docs by their last name (usually because I’m trying to get something dictated that hasn’t been.)
To be fair, though, I’ve run into several of my old High School teachers now that I’m an adult and 18 years out of high school. Most of them have encouraged me to call them by their first name, since we’re both adults. I have issues with that, too. But I try, because it’s what they’d prefer.
But I’m aware they’re my issues. To me, it was a matter of courtesy growing up and hasn’t changed. I’m not necessarily addressing the right/wrong issue with it, just how I handle it.
Oh hell, maybe we should all have some sort of odd titles. It might be fun. You, Col. spoke-, may now call me Grandmaster of the Iridium Catalyst, his Rukenness
I completely understand where your post is coming from, and I think it illustrates some of what I’ve been saying.
Doesn’t it seem like these issues of being unable to address people by their first name sort of stem from the way they’ve been cast in a sort of paternal, and superior role? And, I think that gets at the problem, because I was damn well never going to tell my dad the whole story, if it was embarassing; and your doctor needs the whole story. But my friends, they get to hear all about the consistency of my bowel movements, and my noxious flatulence.
I’ll step away from being an amateur psychiatrist now…
Ah! See, here’s the difference–I would never tell my father OR my friends about the consistency of my bowel movements, at least not in any detail beyond “Oh, man, I ate something horribly wrong and was up all night . . .” The only person I would go into detail with is my doctor, and if he introduced himself as “Steve”, I’d be uncomfortable being frankly honest with him.
So the same convention that makes you uncomfortable makes me comfortable. Are there more like you or more like me out there? I don’t think I’m the weird freaky one here, but I suppose you don’t think you are the weird freaky one either.
On a personal level, you can always say to a doctor “I would be more comfortable telling you about this if I called you by your first name. Is that ok?” If they say “no, that makes me uncomfortable”, then that is not the doctor for you, just as I would never stay with a doctor who insisted on being called by their first name.
So…you advocate deceiving patients? “Establishing the dynamic”? What dynamic would that be? Please tell me it’s not the patriarchal dynamic where physicians presume to decide when (and even whether) to tell the patient about their diagnosis/prognosis, and get ruffled if patients presume to ask questions, doubt, or even get a second opinion (in other words make their own decisions about their care)? I had hoped those days were gone. Simply put, A patient has a right to know when the person they are dealing with is a med student. Your advocacy of deceit is frightening. Truly.
Let’s try this. You’re involved in a nasty malpractice case. Opposing party is being deposed over several days. Your lawyer comes in and says “This is Nancy Kline, she’s a lawyer. She’ll be handling part of the deposition” (and she proceeds to do just that). You’re perfectly fine in not knowing that Nancy is, in fact, a law student – and even intentionally misrepresenting herself to you, the client, as a lawyer? And you’re ok with your lawyer being party to this deception? To help “establish the dynamic”?
Really? I myself wouldn’t stand for it. You have my admiration in not objecting to this charade in the name of student development and “establishing the dynamic”.
How would they know to ask, after the person with you was just introduced, by you, as “doctor”? In a teaching intitution, you can have more doctors (real, actual doctors) swing through than you can shake a stick at. Do patient’s need to ask every single person who says “I’m Doctor J” if they’re really a doctor?
That bit about “for the benefit of both the student and the patient”…? I call BS. It’s for the benefit of the student. Completely. What possible benefit could it be to the patient to think someone is an M.D when they are in fact a student? To increase their “comfort level” or “confidence”? Maybe it doesn’t need to be increased, and maybe you don’t get to decide that.
I wonder what medical ethicists would make of this? Or even the state medical board? Really - not being sarcastic. I’d be interested to see how much support this would have at an official, regulatory level such as the state medical board - med students representing themselves to patient’s as licensed physicians. Or maybe, on second thought, I don’t want to know.
Sorry, I really don’t mean this as a personal attack against you. You just happened to be the one who said it. This just strikes me as…wrong. Plainly and simply wrong. Patients have a right to know when someone attending to them is a med student. I know that makes it tough on the med student, but them’s the breaks. The hospital’s primary responsibility, and that of the attending physician, is to the patient, not to making life a little easier on med students. Myself, I have no problems with a med student being involved in my care. I do have a problem with med students - and the physicians actually responsible for my care - deceiving me.
What are you afraid of in telling the truth? Yes, people will be a bit more skeptical of a med student. They should be. Again, tough on the med student, but…too bad. Really. Too damn bad. And it could even be that having to deal with patients solely as students, with the skepticsm and doubt/questioning that may accompany being identified as such without the shield of “doctor” ,will make them better physicians, better able to interact with their patients because the had to learn how.
I work as a lab tech up here and I’m about the age of the youngest doctors we get. And we get a lot of docs fresh out of schoo because, let’s face it, Nunavut isn’t exaclty tops on too many peoples’ list of “places to go when I’m a doctor”
At work, in front of anyone, they’re “Dr. Pistlethwaite” or “Dr. Leiderhosen”. I think I do this so that others take them seriously, seeing as they’re usually so young. And, as Qadgop was saying, I think it helps foster professionalism.
When we’re hanging out, of course, it’s “Bob” and “Sue”. Heck, sometimes it’s even “hey, asshole!” But that’s a lot different.
I don’t think that that is a universal truth. I’ve known just as many men who were private people as women. But my objection to your arguement still stands–you object to “doctor” becuase it makes you uncormfortable, I object to first names because they make me uncomfortable. So you should seek out doctors that prefer a first-name relationship with their patients and I will seek out doctors that are more formal. But you shouldn’t lambast the profession as a whole for maintaining a convention that at least some people consider a postitive good.
Hey Shaky Jake, it sort of made me realize the futility of explaining my reasoning against using the term “doctor” for people who are doctors to a profession who considers it debatable whether the term should be used for people who aren’t doctors.
I wasn’t as clear as I could have been earlier; when I introduce a student to a patient, as “Dr.” or not, I always explain that he or she is a student. That’s when the aforementioned conversation tends to come up, if at all. There isn’t any deception involved.
The other thing I thought I had said, but I didn’t–I don’t like it at all when students introduce themselves as “Doctor”. It’s completely unacceptable without the appropriate disclaimers, and I have reamed students for doing so. I have, however, found that most patients I have talked to about it are more comfortable referring to a student as “Doctor” if the student is the one doing the hands-on care, even when they know it isn’t technically right.
The reason I like using “Dr.” when I’m talking to the student is that I believe students learn more when they have responsibility, or more importantly, when they feel like they do. As long as it is all informal and no one is confused about who is what, I think it helps them take the ownership and responsibility that distinguishes good med students from bad, and it gets them used to words that are going to weight pretty heavily upon them when they’re interns a few years later.
I guess that when I use “Doctor” in our profession, I’m not really referring to the academic title or the honorific, but the job that the person is doing. Sometimes I do use it as an honorific within the profession, as I do with our attendings. I mean something completely different with it when I use it with a student, or with a professor, or with my optometrist.
And, of course, I meant no disrespect at all to QtM and the other genuine board doctorate-types by my username during those first few years on the board; like I said, it was my nickname IRL at the time, and it was the only thing I could think of when I registered on a whim all those years ago.
I guess I don’t mind hijacking into this new topic, as I think we were done with the old one anyway.
While I appreciate the effort to tell the patient that the “doctor” is a medical student, you are assuming that your patient knows that medical students are not in fact doctors. While this might be common knowledge among your friends and family, I would not be at all surprised if many of your patients assume that the “doctor” who is a “medical student” is in fact a real doctor, which he/she is not. I mean, this other “doctor” is calling him “doctor”, so he must be a doctor, right? Cause, they wouldn’t fraudulently use the term “doctor”, would they?
I appreciate the justification that it is for the good of the medical student, but guess what? The hospital is not there for the good of the medical student. His or her needs come a distant second to the patient. And, if I, as a patient, don’t want to be seen by a medical student, which is an entirely understandable feeling, that’s my call, not yours.
So, no offense, but I don’t give two rat’s asses if the medical student feels intimidated or insecure if they are not called “doctor”; if they hang on a few years, they will get called “doctor” and deserve it. Now, it is not just unethical, it’s damn near fraudulent. Maybe a little hubris is a good lesson.
It’s refering to the job that person’s doing? Oh C’mon! I suppose you call the nurses “doctor” too? You know, cause they’re doctoring. And the orderlies?
Again, I don’t know what the current status of this debate is, because I remember this came up a few years ago. I’d actually appreciate an update. But, to me, the fact that this came up and was taken seriously, and debated, and justified at all, is indicative of a problem. I’m pretty good at looking at two sides of things, but I’m having a lot of trouble seeing the other side of this debate.
