# You have an MD or a PhD. Do you make people call you "Doctor" in social settings? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 15, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798 "2012-09-15T16:50:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![polar\_bear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@polar\_bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/polar_bear)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/21 "2012-09-15T19:23:23Z")
I don’t have my PhD yet… but I do intend - at some point in time, probably when dealing with a government official - to rebut a ‘Mr. polar bear’, with: 'That’s Doctor polar bear, for you":D. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/22 "2012-09-15T19:26:03Z")
What about people who insist on calling themselves ‘Doctor XYZ’ but trivialize it by changing it to ‘Dr. (first name)’ or some equally specious bastardization? I’ve noticed that this is particularly popular with community college instructors. I know one who insists that people call her ‘Dr. K’ because her first name is Kathleen. It always irked me to say it, because she’s a strikingly attractive woman, and Kathleen is itself a pleasant-sounding name, but she wants to be recognized by a name befitting a breakfast cereal. I know it’s irrational to be bothered by this, as it’s just a name. People can and should call themselves whatever the fuck they want to. But every time I see one of these celebrity MD/PhDs on TV, I always feel the compulsion to say “look, you pretentious domed douchebag—your name is Phil McGraw. Either call yourself Dr. McGraw, or Phil—one or the other.” Am I alone in this, or does the practice annoy anybody else? ---
**Author:** ![Not\_From\_Here](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/2acd7d/32.png) [@Not\_From\_Here](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_From_Here)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/23 "2012-09-15T19:29:15Z")
I like to be called Dear Leader.😛 ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/24 "2012-09-15T19:36:51Z")
> [@Not\_From\_Here](#): > > I like to be called Dear Leader.😛 \*“As someone once remarked to Schubert…” \* Sorry ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/25 "2012-09-15T19:40:36Z")
> [@capybara](#): > > I never encourage it (not even with students, really-- if feels creepy, but I have issues with hierarchy and such), but I do bust it out irritably in one situation: > “Miss or Mrs?” > “Doctor. .. [glares]” > because I hate the tiered honorifics for women so very much-- a personal identifier based on one’s relationship to a man (and there’s nothing analogous for men). Since “none of your fucking business” is not an option when I buy an airline ticket I’ll pick the option that has something to do with me as myself. Damn it. [waves around burning bra and ululates] Oh God, yes. “Mrs.” and “Miss” drive me equally crazy, although at least the latter is accurate. Still more annoying is “Miss Fretful,” which makes me wonder whether students have mistaken me for their kindergarten teacher.\* (I would be fine with students calling me just plain “Fretful,” but it is really, really not the done thing at my institution except maybe in some of the fine and performing arts, and I don’t see any good reason to buck institutional culture and risk annoying my colleagues.) The standard mode of address here, BTW, is “Dr.” rather than “Professor.” I’d be tempted to say that it has something to do with the fact that we still have some faculty without doctorates, but it was also “Dr.” at the much fancier university where I got my graduate degree. It was “Professor” at my undergrad college. I think it’s just one of those random institutional-culture things. - Actually, I suspect that the real problem is that they’re not sure how to pronounce my last name, which is a reasonably common eight-letter name of Irish origin, and is pronounced EXACTLY AS SPELLED. But people in this part of the country, which is very rural and has been mostly insulated from every wave of immigration from the 1840s onward, seem to have trouble with it. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/26 "2012-09-15T19:44:25Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > What about people who insist on calling themselves ‘Doctor XYZ’ but trivialize it by changing it to ‘Dr. (first name)’ or some equally specious bastardization? Eh, the times I’ve seen it real life, it’s been foreign-born people with serious tongue-twister names. Rather than spending all day, every day, watching their patients and students struggle to spit out their names and usually mangle them anyway, these folks use either their first name or the first syllable of their first or last names along with Doctor. It seems like a perfectly reasonable work-around, rather than a trivialization. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/27 "2012-09-15T19:48:21Z")
Yeah, I would have to agree with you on that one. I would most likely do the same thing given the same circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/28 "2012-09-15T19:51:43Z")
Any title is strange in a social setting, unless you are introducing a child to an adult you aren’t close with. Sometimes people will call me “Dr.”, but only in a joking way. Or when they need a favor. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/29 "2012-09-15T19:55:04Z")
I find it even more egregious when friends and colleagues from law school call themselves Doctor because they have a JD. A Juris Doctorate is a professional degree, a larrrrrge rung down (IMHO) from a PhD. I plan on having both at some point in my life though. But I wouldn’t demand to be referred to as doctor among friends, except perhaps as a joke. Someone asked the Dean of my law school a few questions about the JD, when he did a Q&A with our small group torts class. He seems annoyed that their “arms were twisted” to switch the degree from LLB to JD, to sound more American and less British (here in Canada). “Can we call ourselves Doctor?” She asked. “You can call yourself Reverend, for all I care!” replied the Dean. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/30 "2012-09-15T19:57:23Z")
Hell, no. :eek: If anyone of my own nationality uses the “Dr.” honorific, there’s a 99.99% chance it’s meant as a joke. I’m even uncomfortable with foreign students using the “Professor” honorific, since all my national students call me by my first name. The only reason for insisting on the “Dr.” is in situations like those **Qadgop** is describing. It _would_ have been fun to be able to pull off the “That’s Doctor 2square, for you”, but over here it’s just not possible to do that without branding oneself as a huge douche ---
**Author:** ![Old\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7feea3/32.png) [@Old\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Old_Red)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/31 "2012-09-15T20:14:53Z")
It is straightforward. A PhD degree entitles the holder to use and be addressed as Dr. … On the other hand, an MD, or a medical practitioner in the UK, carries the title Dr merely as a courtesy, unless of course, (s)he does hold a PhD degree. However, the term Dr is now so entrenched worldwide, not least by the medical profession, that it has become a ‘right’. Strangely, in the UK many years ago, a medical specialist - or consultant - was called Mr., to distinguish him from the lowly Dr or General Practitioner. Unfortunately the word has become so prostituted over the years that a 17 year-old with two weeks work experience can become an instant ‘consultant’. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/32 "2012-09-15T20:17:32Z")
In social situations, I think it’d be douchey to insist someone call you “doctor”, regardless of what kind of doctorate you have. Professionally, I’d say it could go either way; if you work in, say, a corporate office and have a PhD when most everyone else has a bachelor’s or master’s, you’d be a douche to insist on everyone calling you doctor. If you work in medicine, research or academia, I’d say it’s entirely reasonable to. As far as academia, “professor” as a title is a higher rank than “doctor”, since you need a PhD before becoming a professor (with a handful of exceptions). “Professors” in the looser “teacher at the college/uni level” sense who do not have a PhD generally have the title of Adjunct, Lecturer or Instructor. Some professors might prefer to be called professor, others may want doctor, and others may want you to just use their name (this is for general everyday stuff; at a conference or something, they often switch to formal address). The head of my graduate program, who has a PhD and an MA and is a full professor and nationally recognized in the field? Call him Dr. Ted. 🙂 Not Professor Ted, not Dr. LastName\*. He would drive **Washoe** nuts! 😛 - BUT most importantly, he would never correct someone who defaulted to a more formal address, especially when first introduced. He’s a great, laid-back guy. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/33 "2012-09-15T20:18:29Z")
> [@Old\_Red](#): > > It is straightforward. A PhD degree entitles the holder to use and be addressed as Dr. … On the other hand, an MD, or a medical practitioner in the UK, carries the title Dr merely a courtesy, unless of course, (s)he does hold a PhD degree. However, the term Dr is now so entrenched worldwide, not least by the medical profession, that it has become a ‘right’. > > Strangely, in the UK many years ago, a medical specialist - or consultant - was called Mr., to distinguish him from the lowly Dr or General Practitioner. Unfortunately the word has become so prostituted over the years that a 17 year-old with two weeks work experience can become an instant ‘consultant’. “Mr” is the honorific for a surgeon. An MD in the UK is the equivalent of a PhD for a medical doctor. There are various degree awards for a medical doctor (MB ChB and MBBS are two that I can recall), but generally they are a dual bachelors award in medicine and surgery, and the title “Doctor” is honorary. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/34 "2012-09-15T20:50:45Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Another vote of the same … but I must admit being called “Mr. …” is an odd sensation. That was my Dad; I’ve never been “Mr. …” I initially (and occasionally still) find it weird to be addressed as “Dr. …” - that was my father. I don’t want to be called “Dr.” outside of work. Of course, I insist that Mrs. Jackmannii always use my title when speaking to me. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/35 "2012-09-15T21:08:59Z")
**FINAL RULE** Whether you have an M.D., Ph.D., or — LOL — a J.D. (haha, I’m a doctor too!) … If you have patients, you can call yourself “Doctor” (so practicing M.D.'s and clinical psychologists with Ph.D.'s). If you have college or graduate students, you can call yourself “Professor.” If you have an advanced degree without either of the further qualifications, you can call yourself “Mister” or “Miz” as appropriate. Any of these are suitable in social scenarios. Observing the ceremony too sedulously is not. Some attorneys have this mistaken belief that “Attorney” can also be a courtesy title, as in “Attorney Gibbler.” This is, as noted, incorrect. No, my name’s not “Attorney,” it’s “Kimmy,” “Ms. Gibbler” if you’re nasty. The more you know :comet trail star: ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/36 "2012-09-15T22:02:20Z")
I forgot to mention one reason that it irks me to insist on “Dr.” outside of a formal situation. I was once upon a time a member (well, a non-voting parent rep but with full voice) on the local school board. The other parent rep insisted he be called Dr. He was a douchebag for various reasons, but he once said to me, “I worked damned hard to get that PhD and I want it recognized.” Out of some kindness I foreswore to mention that I hadn’t worked hard at all. In retrospect, I should have. ---
**Author:** ![FrillyNettles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7ea924/32.png) [@FrillyNettles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrillyNettles)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/37 "2012-09-15T22:12:11Z")
I’m a DVM, and no, I don’t use the title “Dr.” outside of work. At work, I prefer my technicians refer to me by my first name, except in front of clients. Curiously, though, when I am a patient at my physician’s office or even my dentist’s office, they call me to the back as “Dr. FrillyNettles.” I think it is an attempt to respect my equivalent degree, but it isn’t necessary. Besides, I don’t want the other patients to find out I am a veterinarian. That just leads to hearing about everyone’s pets and their medical issues. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/38 "2012-09-15T22:22:29Z")
No one calls me Dr. Jaj in social situations, except for some older Indian friends of mine who I call Mr. X and Mr. Y. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/39 "2012-09-15T22:40:03Z")
On my first visit to a new dentist (DDS), he sat down with me in a conference room and said, “Please call me ‘Jerry’.” I certainly couldn’t ask him to call me “Dr. Musicat” after that. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798/40 "2012-09-15T23:37:00Z")
A long time ago when HR sent letters to employment candidates saying I was meeting them for breakfast they’d say doctor, aside from that none in over 30 years. I’ve observed that people who put PhD on their business cards work in places where almost no one has one. And often not very good places. At Bell Labs, where about half the MTS had PhDs, some new person used it, and he was corrected with “someone is just going to ask you for a prescription if you use doctor.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-md-or-a-phd-do-you-make-people-call-you-doctor-in-social-settings/634798.md?page=3)