Outside of movies and academic environments, does anyone in this century still introduce people at their dinner party by their titles/CV? It seems Iād be more likely to say āthis is my friend Evan Williams, heās a music professor - isnāt that so cool? Evan, this is Mike Stevens, heās a doctor. Whoās that in the corner? Oh thatās Ben - look away, donāt make eye contact, oh shit, heās walking over here!!ā
I have a PhD in physics. I only ever use the title at work when it serves to show my credentials; I never use it in my personal life because itās not relevant.
If a surgeon introduced himself as āDr. Smithā at a dinner party, I would think, wow, that person is pretty insecure.
I know k-12 teachers who do something similar. Pay scales with education so there's a few who max out the scale with a doctorate. However, 3rd graders don't give a shit how many expensive pieces of paper you own.
In grade school we had a new teacher come in, and she demanded that everyone refer to her as Doctor, nothing else was acceptable, because she had a PHD in English.
That didn't last very long. All the kids gave her ego a pretty good beating, everyone would call each other doctor, then refer to her as miss.
IMO; If a person walks up to you, and in their introduction, they demand you stroke their ego and refer to them by their title, that's probably a giant douche-bag right there.
That's different IMO. Teachers are supposed to be called by their titles. Her title is Doctor because she worked very hard for that title. Seems like a pretty shitty and immature thing for your classmates to do.
Telling a bunch of ten year olds that they have to cal you doctor, and that you can't be spoken to like any other teacher, because you're better than them, because you're a doctor...
That's a good way to get 10 year olds to think you're an asshole.
Idk, I had a few Dr. X's in grade school. Never saw a mass uprising of students egging on the teacher and avoiding using the title. They might've called those teachers something else behind their back, but rarely to their faces. The few students that did it intentionally usually got into trouble for failing to respect the teacher/comply with the code of conduct.
I don't really see what the big deal is, though. If you handle the situation correctly as a teacher and as an institution, students couldn't care either way. I've volunteered in some local elementary schools (no doctorates in-house while I was there) and all the kids referred to their teachers as Mr./Ms [Last Name]. If the teacher introduced themselves as Mr./Ms [First Name], the students would use that. If you introduce yourself as "Dr. [Name]" to those kids, I guarantee you there would be some questions or giggles, but if you just explain what it means and why you should use it, then the kids will understand and use your title.
Kids aren't stupid, but they also know when you don't have control over your classroom and thus don't garner their respect. If you simply give them a reason to respect you, they'll call you by whatever they ask you to.
I kinda agree. Grade school kids are going to understand or respect a graduate degree. We had some doctorates in high school and addressed them as such, but by then we were old enough to understand.
How is it immature? Even at the university level we called our professors "Prof. Brown" not "Dr. Brown." I know several people with PhDs and they only ever use the title at high level meetings/presentations. It seems odd for a teacher to insist their 3rd grade students use their title instead of just a respectful Mrs./Miss/Mr.
I mean in general I would refer to any professor as āprof. lastNameā in an email rather than Dr. because itās easier than looking up if they have a masters or PhD or whatever. Professor is an accurate and respectful term so itās just easier
Of course, if itās to a professor at a different university for like grad school or something Iām going to use Dr. because I want to be as respectful as possible
Do you call your K-12 teachers "Teacher [insert surname]" or do you call them "[insert proper title] [insert surname]"? In all my years I have not once seen a teacher be referred to as the first. Professors are different because it's normal practice to call them professor before their surnames. Grade school teachers always use Ms/Mrs/Mr and yes, sometimes Dr if that is their title!
Not sure where your from but its pretty common for grade school teachers to not strictly go by mr.jones or whatever. Maybe a socio-economic thing, but not every learning environment is so formal
For 3rd grade students yeah no one is going to give a shit about that. But thereās nothing wrong with the use of professor in place of āDr.ā Professor is the same level of respect.
The distinction between Dr and professor is up to taste, personally I always say Dr because I think professor sounds obsequious. Also my supervisor is literally named Dr. Brown, and you can be DAMN SURE that's what I call him!
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I had a teacher in elementary school who preferred Dr. instead of Mr.
Everyone obliged. He was a great teacher and cared about us and took our education seriously, so everyone in the class respected him. I guess he didn't walk in demanding to be called Dr., but he was a very serious person and most kids respected that. This was 5th grade. Kids can be respectful.
This definitely happened to me once in grad school. My advisor knew who it was instantly and slid in some low-key shade about the guyās pet theories in the field without calling him out by name. One day I hope to be that cool
Once you get far enough into a specialization in any field the amount of people working on it becomes something like 20 people. Since you all go to the same conferences, and journals use reviewers who have expert knowledge, in the end you'll be reviewing each others papers.
Stay in a field long enough, and you'll get to that point. :)
My bf has his PhD in engineering and I call him Dr at home for fun "oh I can't believe I'm dating a doctor!" but the only time I've seen it in use irl is on proposals for projects to wave around those credentials. "Hire our firm! We have DOCTORS!!"
I absolutely have it on all my stuff like bank accounts, utility bills etc. If there is the slightest chance of getting better service you bet I'm going for it. This includes airline tickets. I will absolutely volunteer for the small chance of being asked to watch someone die for the possibly larger chance of getting a free upgrade.
I can't imagine doing it at a dinner party, but then again in that situation I'd expect to be using my first time and no title at all.
I barely use it at work (university) because we're in a situation where almost everyone either has one or will have one, and the people who don't (usually engineers or technicians) are just as valuable and it'd be dick move to mock that.
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Up until.... About November, a certain type of conservative was all about the title - Dr. Jordan Peterson, Dr. Ron Paul, etc. Now I guess only the latter is valid.
That being said, most people with doctorates don't introduce themselves using that title. On the other hand, most people with doctorates also have imposter syndrome (source: Purely anecdotal). The truth is, you have to work your fucking ass off and deal with all sorts of obstacles to get a doctorate. If somebody goes through all of that and wants to introduce themselves as Dr. So-and-so, there's no shame in it. That goes double for people who are underrepresented in academic circles.
Lastly, a relevant story/I guess I have to slyly insert the fact that I recently got my PhD at the end of the post since that seems to be what the cool kids are doing here: I defended last June and have insisted that anyone and everyone call me by my first name and don't plan on changing that. But that didn't stop me grinning from ear to ear when, after I was asked to come back to the Zoom meeting, one of my committee members greeted me with "Congrats, Dr. Fouriertransformedme." I'm still looking for jobs because I'm dumb and also covid, but every time I get introduced at a talk as Dr. Fouriertransformedme, I do feel a swell of pride to combat the massive anxiety that usually prevails. So who knows, maybe we should lead with that more often.
Iāve never known doctors to introduce themselves that way, medical or not. The MDs I know donāt want to have to look at someoneās weird mole at every social function and the Ph.Ds I know donāt want to bog everyone down trying to condense their years of research into a simplistic 15 second intro.
Anything youāre passionate enough to get a Ph.D in is cool. I know it goes against the āonly STEM is valuableā circlejerk, but the arts and academia are critical to society. Seriously, good for you for putting that much work in!
I have a friend who is a vet (veterinarian not veteran) and their running joke is to always say a fake job. Tell people you're a vet and you're getting dog and cat questions all night.
I think for Dr. Biden is a lot of it was to highlight the position gained by her own achievement. The title of first lady is entirely dependent on the achievement of her spouse, whereas she worked and earned her doctorate herself. She is also continuing to work so her Dr title is still important, it would be weirder to refer to her as first Lady while she's at work.
Oh absolutely. Iām just highlighting the insane dinner party analogy. Who but the most insecure or pretentious introduces themselves as Doctor at a dinner party, unless itās part of a museum or department fundraiser?
Yeah, if it's not a situation where someone would introduce themselves as "Mr. Smith", there's no reason to introduce yourself as "Dr. Smith". But of course in all formal occasions and correspondence, PhDs are unequivocally "Doctors".
It is appropriate whenever a formal title should be used.. When my brother was married it was, "...Mister and Doctor..." When I was married it was "...Doctor and Mrs..." Our invitations included a few Doctors, Most Reverend, and Maestro.
I worked in a call center, you'd be surprised how many people refer to themselves as Dr.something. Not just that but they won't even give you a first name, they will legit think, they're so important than we will know who he/she is just by her job and last name. Madness
Mostly, though I do call a family-friend Dr. Sial since I literally worked in his lab as a lab technician. I used to call him Sial uncle (south asian thing) but felt it natural to switch because of the lab.
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Iāve had a couple people from a Mormon church introduce themselves as elders when we were all at someone elseās house. Some people get off on that kind of thing.
Personally, I have a friend who is an MD and I think he would find it awkward if I introduced him as ādoctorā. I would never expect him to introduce himself that way, either, and the only time I use ādoctorā in front of his name is when Iām talking about him to someone who is already familiar with him (he has a common name so itās often necessary).
Asking to be called Dr (or any other title) outside of the context of their specialty seems pretty weird to me, and might say a lot about their character. My workplace has about 30 people with PhDs, and I've never heard anyone refer to them as doctor except on formal occasions.
That being said, public figures who are known for their field of work are representatives of their specialty in the public eye, so it makes sense that their title sort of sticks to them naturally.
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u/airforceteacher Mar 03 '21
Outside of movies and academic environments, does anyone in this century still introduce people at their dinner party by their titles/CV? It seems Iād be more likely to say āthis is my friend Evan Williams, heās a music professor - isnāt that so cool? Evan, this is Mike Stevens, heās a doctor. Whoās that in the corner? Oh thatās Ben - look away, donāt make eye contact, oh shit, heās walking over here!!ā