How did MD come to be the qualifying medical degree in the US instead of a varient on Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery like other English-speaking countries (except Canada)? American law degrees used to be LLBs as in the Commonwealth.
I don’t know, but I know why we’re probably not switching. If you have a choice between an M.D. and a “Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery”, which would you choose? While many claim that requirements are not as stringent, to me J.D., M.D., and research Ph.D. holders are fairly equivalent – sure, research Ph.D’s are harder, but they usually don’t have to extensively work with people outside academia, which evens the field.
Implied in the OP’s question is that we started out the same, and the American system changed - is this the case? I suspect there was a greater degree of inconsistency on each side of the Atlantic, and that national standardisation resulted in different nomenclature.
Don’t forget about DO, or doctor of osteopathy. It’s a separate degree than MD but in theory should be fairly equivalent. In practice, however, DOs kind of get the shaft in America.
Is the US the only country where “Bachelor” implies only a 4-year degree?
What do you mean? Any 4-year first degree (similar to British usage, where it can also be a 3-year course)? A medical degree?
[QUOTE=groman]
… to me J.D., M.D., and research Ph.D. holders are fairly equivalent …QUOTE]
I used to have a friend who argued that a Ph. D. was the only legitimate doctorate, signifying a truly educated person. M.D.s and J.D.s were merely trade school diplomas similar to what an auto mechanic might get.
I think we are mssing something very basic. A medical degree isn’t considered a bachelors degree in the U.S. because it isn’t one. It is a graduate degree and you almost always need a four year bachelors degree to even get into medical school. Years 5 - 8 are medical school whereas some countries let students enroll straight into medical school from high school.
Ronald C. Semone is right; never suggest to a Ph.D that his degree is equivalent to an M.D. or a J.D., or he’s likely to bite right through his meerschaum pipe and tear the elbow patches off of his tweed jacket in disgust. They’re right, though, J.D.s and M.D.s really aren’t comparable to Ph.Ds. That’s not to take away from the M.D. or J.D. at all, it’s just that professional degrees and academic degrees are apples and oranges.
A J.D. has “doctor” in the title, but most schools offering the J.D. make clear it’s not a doctorate, and it’s generally considered improper to refer to it as a “Juris Doctorate” in a resume. It’s a “Juris Doctor” or “Juris Doctor Degree.” Also, if you are a lawyer and refer to yourself as “doctor” in anything but jest, other lawyers will probably make fun of you.
This is very true.
In the US, Johns Hopkins was the first medical school to require a bachelor’s degree for admission to their medical school. Later when the Flexner report came out, touting Hopkins as the model for medical education in the US, the other schools followed this model.
And I’ve no problem with any Ph.D. being called “Doctor” at all. However, if they wish to deprecate my degree, then let them answer when someone asks “Is there a doctor aboard” on their next airplane flight. 
Can I ask you, as a complete aside, how often you get called on in this capacity? I don’t think I’ve ever heard “Is there a doctor in the house?” in real life. (On the other hand, if I were a doctor, I’d probably never be able to get on an airplane without hearing it.)
Bachelor’s = 4-year undergraduate degree
IINAMD/BMed/etc…
But I’ve got several relatives who are. One uncle was involved in a tube crash - a train smashed into the rear of their one, and they were in the last carriage. He climbed through the wreckage to reach the driver of the other train, but couldn’t do anything to help him. Another uncle helped with a major car crash which happened outside his house.
Whether any of the numerous medical professionals in the family have actually heard the ‘is there a doctor’ cliche called out, I don’t know.
I’ve never had this happen on an airplane, but I was riding on a train once and had a passenger near me go into a full-on grand mal seizure. I made sure he wasn’t going to hurt himself and kept his airway open, but did not do anything that really required MD training. I got a couple of people to help me carry him out at the next station, and we waited for the EMTs to get there and take over.
As far as the MD vs. PhD thing goes, I am in a position to compare because I have one of each. For me, the MD degree was far more effort-intensive and stressful, but required less self-discipline than the PhD because the education proceeds in a regimented way that sets short-term goals. In a PhD program, you have to self-motivate a lot more. It’s both a blessing and a curse when you have to work at your own speed and on your own schedule.
I don’t think I’d agree with that.
My brother holds a Ph.D., and I’m quite convinced that he worked much harder for his doctorate than I did for my LL.B. Having to research and write a dissertation, on an original topic, that you can defend from critique by experts in the field? Nope, never had to do that to get my ticket. There’s a reason so many people don’t complete their Ph.D. and settle for the “A.B.D.” (“All But Dissertation.”) One article I saw suggested that the non-completion rate for Ph.D. candidates was very high. That’s not the case for the LL.B.
I’d also agree that the MDs work harder for their degrees than the law students - it takes much longer to become a practising medico than for a lawyer to sign the rolls, what with internships, residencies, and so on.
I don’t think I would agree with your friend, because it all depends what you call “educated”. If your definition of “educated” is in-depth knowledge of a particular field, then I would rank Ph.Ds ahead of MDs, who in turn come ahead of the LL.B./J.D.
But if you define “educated” aw well-rounded and general, the goal of a traditional liberal arts degree, then I would reverse the order. The law degree is a generalist degree, more so than either the M.D. or Ph.D., and can be useful in areas removed from the practice of law. (In most classes at law school, there are usually students who go to law school without intending to practise law, but want the law degree because it helps greatly with other career goals (e.g. - business, journalism, politics). There’s also usually a group of students who decide part way through that practising law is not for them, but they want to complete the degree for the job advantages.)
In a way, the LL.B. / J.D. degree is a continuation of the generalist approach of the B.A., which is one of the reasons I found it attractive, as did several of my classmates. (in my experience, law students tend not to have the specialist mentality in the same way as some of the other professional schools.) The law degree is an applied study in human interactions - how people deal with each other, how they solve problems in their daily lives, how they organize their affairs, and how they relate to the government and vice versa. In my view, the LL.B./J.D. is a humanities degree.
In fact, I enjoyed the LL.B. experience so much, I went back for a second one!
4 times in about 20 years of flying. But frankly I fly maybe twice a year.
A handful of times in shopping centers.
Once at a (medical) conference.
Once I got called on to render assistance while a patient in a hospital. :rolleyes:
What? If you were in a hospital weren’t there plenty of other people around to help? How did that work? I for one would be alarmed if I were the other patient and had a Dr. in his own hospital gown assisting me :). A little understaffed, are we?
Yes, they certainly were. The patient they asked me to see was co-incidentally, an MD also.
The inmates run the asylum!
Geez, I hope they had the decency to knock a little off your bill…