Doctor Who?

If you want to irritate someone with a PhD, just say "Oh, not a proper doctor then," meaning a doctor of medicine.

Why would anyone want to make such a distinction - unless perhaps there might be a deliberate intention to deceive that you were a doctor of medicine, or that prospective clients would be likely to assume it, in which case it would be right and proper?

It isn't usually doctors of medicine, but others, who do it to you. Once, when an MD discovered, in a consultation, that I had a PhD, he insisted on going through every mention of "Mr" on his notes and changing it. Even when I said it was not necessary and preferred he did not bother, he shook his head and continued until he had changed every one.

When I ask people who confidently tell me that it is the convention that people who have a PhD shouldn't call themselves Dr Joe Bloggs but Mr Joe Bloggs PhD, I ask them to show me where they have found that. They reply, "Oh everyone says it ..." but they can never remember who the "everyone" is or where they can be found.

I can tell you, as one who has had a PhD since 1980 and who knows a lot of other people who have PhDs, that we usually prefer first names (some people I have known for years still don't know I have a PhD) but, professionally, academically, it is "Dr Joe Bloggs" on the door.

Incidentally, I wonder why, after studying and practising all those years, does "Dr" become "Mr" again when they become a consultant surgeon?

We are generally not as fussy about titles here as are, say the Germans -- Do you know that if a person has more than one doctorate, they acknowledge them all, even in forms of address: Doktor, Doktor and even Doktor, Doktor, Doktor.  Really!

I am more concerned about discovering the reasons why someone wants to take away a title for which I worked the best part of a decade.  Ask 'em why and you never get a straight answer.

Dr John H Greensmith
ME Free For All. org