The Title “Dr”

Right after my postdoctoral training, when I first started teaching as a “Lecturer in the Discipline of Physics”, I was told to *always* introduce myself as Dr to my students. While I was not exactly feeling cool about it at the time, as I gained more teaching experiences, I eventually came to understand its justification.?

In a world where doctors and professors are still mainly conceived as white old men even by Gen Z, it is essential to take some actions towards changing this notion. The fact that I am a woman who was born and raised abroad, that I speak English with an accent, and that I appear to be relatively young all "disqualified" me from being the class professor at first glance in the eyes of most people. When students were trying to find their seats during the first 10 minutes of the semester, there were times when I greeted them and they appeared perplexed as to why a stranger (maybe a fellow student) was welcoming them to their class. I once had a braver student ask me, startlingly, if I was the professor. I was, and I secretly loved it when they called me that.

In some cultures, such as in many Eastern nations, you never address a professor or anyone with a doctorate degree by their first name. It took me a couple of years to feel comfortable calling my Ph.D. advisor “Jim”, when I moved to the US. Once I got acclimated to it, I found it quite warm. To me it was very humble to address the director of our observatory who was also a Nobel laureate by his first name. I gradually acculturated to the US higher education system, to an extent that after receiving my Ph.D. and continuing as a postdoctoral scholar, I rarely cared about being called Dr. Until I went to teach undergraduates.?

Title is a weird thing. It drags you into a mindset that constantly feeds your ego and intensifies your self-esteem professionally and socially. Getting accustomed to titles, while leaning towards the gentle higher ed culture, I came to this realization that I particularly cared about titles, when it came to the topic of equality. Women, non-binaries, people of color, first generation immigrants, and any other minorities in the US are disproportionately susceptible to biases, discrimination, and undermining their years of hard work. In my opinion, since a Dr title is highly correlated with social status and creates new professional opportunities, it should be equally accredited to those who hold it.?

Transitioning to the healthcare industry for me has generated a new solicitude about titles. To be an MD or a PhD, you should more or less study for the same amount of time. MDs might choose to continue their training by getting into residency and fellowship, whereas PhDs might choose to continue to postdoctoral training and different research paths before settling into a more permanent position. Both might take up to seven years (or longer) to transition into a stable state.?

In healthcare, the title Dr has always been used for medical doctors. More recently, due to the emergence of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary fields and new technical occupations requiring advanced degrees in computer and data related fields, more diverse PhDs are hired in healthcare, hospital, and pharmaceutical industries. While advancements in technology are being implemented in healthcare at a fast pace, it appears that cultural changes will take longer to take place. PhDs in computer science, math, physics, life sciences, and other disciplines are working closely with MDs in the healthcare industries today, however, the title of Dr is rarely used for non-medical doctors in today's hospital/healthcare culture. This has to be changed.?

Here is my state of thoughts: Very similar to how I care about equality of women and other marginalized groups in academia, where if a dominantly present white man is to be perceived as and called by the title Dr at a US university by students and other staff, the underrepresented person should be treated similarly, a PhD in healthcare similar to an MD should equally be addressed as a Dr. If the goal of calling an MD a Dr is to acknowledge and appreciate their valuable work and years of efforts to get to this point, we should equally acknowledge the years of efforts of a PhD and appreciate their contributions to the healthcare industry. We of course also have the option to drop the titles and create a modest culture for all. Either way, equality matters even when it comes to the case of addressing people with equivalent titles in the same work environment.

I am intrigued to hear your thoughts and experiences and hope to hear how other PhDs, MDs, and people without a doctorate degree think about this topic.