The New York Times has an interesting article on a debate in the medical world: Should nurses who have doctorates in nursing practice be called doctors? Should pharmacists who have doctorates in pharmacology be called doctors? The medical profession, that is, doctors, are against it. They say that once tens of thousands of nurses have doctorates, they will invariably seek more prescribing authority and more money. Otherwise, they ask, what is the point? Nursing leaders say that their push to have more nurses earn doctorates has nothing to do with their fight of several decades in state legislatures to give nurses more autonomy, money and prescriptive power. Of course, there’s also the worry that patients will be confused.
Now, what goes unmentioned in this article is the fact that pretty much anyone who has earned a PhD has the right to call themselves “Doctor”. This is true for someone with a doctorate in English as well as Engineering. Yet we don’t confuse them with medical doctors (well, unless they try to take advantage of it 😉 ). I can’t see why we should deny that naming privileges to nurses or pharmacologists. What makes a medical doctor is the letters behind the name (i.e., M.D.), not “Doctor”. In fact, some of the people that emphasize the title (and might have even had the magic M.D. letters at one time) just seem to use it to bilk people.
