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The parent common was surely taking about people with PhD or MD together on a room, both entitled to use the title "Dr" before their name, with MD half jokingly

The parent common was surely taking about people with PhD or MD together on a room, both entitled to use the title "Dr" before their name, with MD half jokingly claiming that they're the "real" doctor. Most of their comment basically says so, plus they seem to be in the UK, where other professionals like nurses would never try to call themselves doctors. Although, in my experience, it's more often the PhD owner claiming that the MD is the real doctor!

joegahona 6y ago
As a reader, I prefer "Dr." before a name to mean medical doctor. Someone with a Phd in something else is "Joe Blow, PhD." This is Associated Press style, I believe.
novok 6y ago
I think because in modern english, the common word you would use to differentiate a PhD vs MD is professor or scientist, while doctor nowadays means 'healer' usually. We aren't the only language that has one word for multiple professions, like sensei means teacher OR medical doctor in japanese.
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  > the common word you would use [for] PhD is professor or scientist Those are not common words for people possessing a PhD, and that's good because they are totally inappropriate words. A PhD is a type of qualification (a very unusual one, in that it requires original contribution to knowledge rather than just learning existing knowledge, but it's a qualification nonetheless). "Professor", in total contrast, is essentially a job title. It's very possible for someone to have a PhD and not be a professor. The most common case is where a PhD holder has simply not stayed in acamedia at all; actually this probably describes the vast majority of PhD holders (by simple maths of the number of PhD students per academic). Even for people in academia there is typically a gap before you get the formal title professor (here in the UK it historically goes PhD student, postdoc, lecturer (the first one of these that is a permanent job), reader, professor; in the US it's a bit different and sometimes you have someone called "associate professor" but not be entitled to use the "Professor" as a title before their name, but there's still certainly a potential gap in the middle). "Scientist" has many of the above problems but is less of a formal term so could maybe be slightly more widely used e.g. maybe a postdoc or someone working in certain types of industry could be called scientist. But it's still basically a job title so it doesn't work for someone that gets a PhD and then becomes a carpenter. It also has the opposite problem that someone could potentially be a scientist without holding a PhD, so if you specifically want to refer to that then it's imprecise. But it has the much larger problem that it only applies to science! It would be very odd to call someone a scientist because they hold a PhD in modern art or literature, or even mathematics or economics.

joegahona 6y ago

As a reader, I prefer "Dr." before a name to mean medical doctor. Someone with a Phd in something else is "Joe Blow, PhD." This is Associated Press style, I believe.

novok 6y ago

I think because in modern english, the common word you would use to differentiate a PhD vs MD is professor or scientist, while doctor nowadays means 'healer' usually. We aren't the only language that has one word for multiple professions, like sensei means teacher OR medical doctor in japanese.

quietbritishjim 6y ago
> the common word you would use [for] PhD is professor or scientist Those are not common words for people possessing a PhD, and that's good because they are totally inappropriate words. A PhD is a type of qualification (a very unusual one, in that it requires original contribution to knowledge rather than just learning existing knowledge, but it's a qualification nonetheless). "Professor", in total contrast, is essentially a job title. It's very possible for someone to have a PhD and not be a professor. The most common case is where a PhD holder has simply not stayed in acamedia at all; actually this probably describes the vast majority of PhD holders (by simple maths of the number of PhD students per academic). Even for people in academia there is typically a gap before you get the formal title professor (here in the UK it historically goes PhD student, postdoc, lecturer (the first one of these that is a permanent job), reader, professor; in the US it's a bit different and sometimes you have someone called "associate professor" but not be entitled to use the "Professor" as a title before their name, but there's still certainly a potential gap in the middle). "Scientist" has many of the above problems but is less of a formal term so could maybe be slightly more widely used e.g. maybe a postdoc or someone working in certain types of industry could be called scientist. But it's still basically a job title so it doesn't work for someone that gets a PhD and then becomes a carpenter. It also has the opposite problem that someone could potentially be a scientist without holding a PhD, so if you specifically want to refer to that then it's imprecise. But it has the much larger problem that it only applies to science! It would be very odd to call someone a scientist because they hold a PhD in modern art or literature, or even mathematics or economics.