Legality on usage of the word "Doctor"?

kipple · 29-10-2009 6:05pm #1

Greetings,

I have a really simple question. What are the requirements in Ireland if any to call your self a Doctor or use the prefix Dr before your name. Here I am thinking of medical doctors.

And my follow up questions:
1. Are "junior doctors" doctors, when in medical training do you become an actual doctor?
2. Is there such a thing as a Doctor of chiropractic here? Are these people Doctors http://www.natbalchiro.com/doctor/chiropractor/3L/dublin-chiropractor/meet-the-doctor.htm

sam34 · 29-10-2009 7:20pm

I'm not sure of the actual legislation regarding the prefix Dr.

there are lots of people entitled to use it, as well as medical doctors, there are dentists (AFAIK) and anyone with a PhD in anything (remember ross in Friends calling himself dr geller when his PhD was in paleontology)

so called junior doctors are actually doctors. you become a medical doctor after completing medical school, be that 5 or 6 years in college, and you are awarded the degree MB (bachelor of medicine) - you are then a doctor. however you are not fully registered with teh medical council, you have to do an intern year to obtain this.

chiropractors call themselves "Dr" the whole time, however they do not have medical degrees and therefore are not medical doctors.

there are legal restrictions regarding teh use of teh term "medical practitioner", this is covered in the medical practitioners act.

locum-motion · 29-10-2009 7:46pm

Just to be really, really pedantic here for a moment:

Grammatically speaking, AFAIK no-one should "call themselves" Dr.

Dr. is - like Mr., Mrs., Colonel, Admiral etc. - a form of address rather than an actual part of the persons name.

So therefore one should address a medical practitioner, dentist (Yes, Sam, you're right about that) or person with a PhD as Dr. Whatever, but strictly speaking it wouldn't be correct for that person to say "My name is Dr. Whatever".

In a similar way, in a formal setting I should be addressed as Mr. Motion, but I would never actually say "My name is Mr. Motion".

As regards Ross in Friends, when he says something like "Hi, my name is Dr. Ross Geller", he's actually either just being really pretentious or the cast and writers don't know the above.

And finally, Chiropractors. If I ever have a conversation with one, I will address them as Mr., Mrs. or Miss as appropriate and if s/he says to me "Actually it's 'Dr.'", I will take great pleasure in saying "No, it's not". They call themselves "Dr.", but since their qualification is neither medical, dental nor a PhD, I for one will not address them as such.

DublinWriter · 29-10-2009 8:00pm

There are three forms of Doctoral Degree, all awarded by accredited educational institutions - academic, professional and honorary.

Dentists, doctors in hospitals and GPs start there careers by obtaining a professional doctorate, MD for doctors and BDS for dentists.

Academic doctors are those who hold a PhD degree in a particular discipline.

Honorary doctors (Gay Byrne, Ian Paisley) are awarded their degree for lifetime achievements in a non-academic sphere of life.

All are entitled to use the prefix 'Dr.' before their names.

I'm unaware of any school of Chiropractory that have been chartered to award doctoral, or any other, degree.

In Italy, you can be addressed as Doctore after completing just a Bachelors degree.

locum-motion · 29-10-2009 8:32pm

DublinWriter wrote: »

There are three forms of Doctoral Degree, all awarded by accredited educational institutions - academic, professional and honorary.

Dentists, doctors in hospitals and GPs start there careers by obtaining a professional doctorate, MD for doctors and BDS for dentists.

Academic doctors are those who hold a PhD degree in a particular discipline.

Honorary doctors (Gay Byrne, Ian Paisley) are awarded their degree for lifetime achievements in a non-academic sphere of life.

All are entitled to use the prefix 'Dr.' before their names.

I'm unaware of any school of Chiropractory that have been chartered to award doctoral, or any other, degree.

In Italy, you can be addressed as Doctore after completing just a Bachelors degree.

I forgot the honourary ones. However, my understanding is that there's a sort of etiquette involved here in that suggests that honourary docs shouldn't insist on being addressed as Dr.
Of course, there are those who always insisted on it. A certain newspaper and baked beans company owner springs to mind!

2Scoops · 29-10-2009 10:02pm

You can get a doctoral degree in chiropractic from the US or Canada. Perfectly entitled to use 'Dr.', if that's the degree they have.

tallaght01 · 30-10-2009 12:41am

I always thought it was the term "medical practitioner" that's protected.

Ironically, when I was working in the UK, a lot of chiropracters called themselves "Dr", but the term "chiropracter" was protected!

sam34 · 30-10-2009 1:31am

tallaght01 wrote: »

I always thought it was the term "medical practitioner" that's protected.

can i refer you to my post:

sam34 wrote: »

there are legal restrictions regarding teh use of teh term "medical practitioner", this is covered in the medical practitioners act.

tallaght01 · 30-10-2009 2:23am

sam34 wrote: »

can i refer you to my post:

I'd have to have taken u off my ignore list to read that :P

sam34 · 30-10-2009 2:27am

tallaght01 wrote: »

I'd have to have taken u off my ignore list to read that :P

am sooooooooooooo tempted to ban you for being cheeky

tallaght01 · 30-10-2009 2:47am

sam34 wrote: »

am sooooooooooooo tempted to ban you for being cheeky

If you do that I'll campaign for "moderator" to be made a protected title, so you'll have to go on a course, probably on the same weekend as one of your bigger GAA matches. That'll learn ya

sam34 · 30-10-2009 3:12am

now you really are cruisin for a bruisin!

Narkius Maximus · 30-10-2009 12:47pm

DublinWriter wrote: »

There are three forms of Doctoral Degree, all awarded by accredited educational institutions - academic, professional and honorary.

Dentists, doctors in hospitals and GPs start there careers by obtaining a professional doctorate, MD for doctors and BDS for dentists.

An MD is a post graduate degree in Ireland and most other european countries that teach medicine as a bachelor (undergraduate) course.It is usually awarded for research conducted by doctors.

D.R cowboy · 30-10-2009 10:47pm

what about a psychologist

locum-motion · 30-10-2009 11:09pm

D.R cowboy wrote: »

what about a psychologist

AFAIK
A Psychologist with a Batchelors/Masters degree in Psychology = Mr/Mrs etc.
A Psychologist with a PhD = Dr.
A Psychiatrist = Dr.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors, Psychologists aren't.

D.R cowboy · 30-10-2009 11:19pm

what about a Psy.D

hotspur · 31-10-2009 1:52am

D.R cowboy wrote: »

what about a Psy.D

That's a doctorate in clinical psychology, a psychologist may also have a non-PhD professional doctorate in counselling psychology. Or if the psychologist only has a BA but has subsequently succeeded in becoming a popular African-American hip hop artist, they may call themselves Dr.

opinion guy · 31-10-2009 1:59pm

Mu understanding was that term Doctor is in fact not protected at all, that anyone could just use it.

As regards the chiropractic thing. The confusion that comes about is this. In the US both chiropractors and osteopaths are officially Doctor's and can work in hospitals and apply for proper mainstream medical jobs (to acertain extent). But then the training they receive would have a more mainstream slant than training in other places AFAIK.

In Europe its a little more complicated. In France say, osteopaths have in recent years after a big review by medical authorities, been recognised as a medical discipline - I'm unsure as to whether they use the title Doctor or not. But then osteopathy is very well establisehd in France and they have many schools etc etc. In uk osteopathy is also well established and they earn a bachelors degree, but afaik don't use the title doctor. I don't really know about chiropractic in europe. In Ireland there are no schools for either osteopathy or chiropractic so essentially all our osteopath and chiropractors are imports. I imagine those from the US tend to use the title doctor as that is what they are used to, but in no way in Ireland would they be officially recognised as doctors. but like i said i don't think the title doctor is actually protected so i don't think there is anything you can do to stop it. For example I think a plumber could easily call himself a drain doctor if he wanted.

Edit: In US they also have naturopathic doctors or N.D's. But I don't really know much about waht they do at all

nesf · 01-11-2009 5:34am

I don't think Dr. is legally protected though I imagine a Judge could give you a legal order to not call yourself Dr. if it could be shown that the purpose was to defraud others (i.e. falsely give the impression that you have an MD or PhD or whatever).

One of the biggest problems is that it's the same term for "medical doctors" and PhD grads. It means that it's very easy to appear to the former when you are the latter by giving generic "medical advice" and appending a Dr. to your name.

Of course a far bigger issue is that you've all these lowly educated plebians running around hospitals calling themselves doctors when really it should be restricted to the better educated people in their ivory towers. An MD is to a PhD what a Chiropractor is to an MD and all that..

nesf · 01-11-2009 5:36am

locum-motion wrote: »

Grammatically speaking, AFAIK no-one should "call themselves" Dr.

Dr. is - like Mr., Mrs., Colonel, Admiral etc. - a form of address rather than an actual part of the persons name.

It's common practice within academic settings for someone to introduce themselves as Dr. or Prof. when talking to students. Many/most don't do it but it's pretty common. Anyone introducing themselves as Dr. or Prof. to their peers would get odd looks though alright. Plus grammar is living and all that.

ballsymchugh · 01-11-2009 6:36am

locum-motion wrote: »

I forgot the honourary ones. However, my understanding is that there's a sort of etiquette involved here in that suggests that honourary docs shouldn't insist on being addressed as Dr.
Of course, there are those who always insisted on it. A certain newspaper and baked beans company owner springs to mind!

once he traded up for the honorary knighthood he dispensed with that pretty quickly.
now, to be really pedantic. about dentists.
as surgeons as generally referred to as Mr, in ireland a dentist calling themselves Dr. is a dublin grad, as the degree is just dentistry.
however, the degree in cork is dental surgery, so grads from there should strictly speaking be referred to as Mr. but there's enough of us that want to be called Dr (me not included) so it's not really paid heed to.

tallaght01 · 01-11-2009 8:54am

ballsymchugh wrote: »

once he traded up for the honorary knighthood he dispensed with that pretty quickly.
now, to be really pedantic. about dentists.
as surgeons as generally referred to as Mr, in ireland a dentist calling themselves Dr. is a dublin grad, as the degree is just dentistry.
however, the degree in cork is dental surgery, so grads from there should strictly speaking be referred to as Mr. but there's enough of us that want to be called Dr (me not included) so it's not really paid heed to.

But the title "Mr" in surgery means that you're a member of the royal college of surgeons.

My medical degree is a bachelor or medicine and bachelor of surgery, but I wouldn't be a "Mr" unless I passed the membership exams for a surgical royal college.

I'm always amazed by the fact that lots of the public thinks anyone who's a "Mr" is automatically more senior than a "Dr". Some of my relatives recently told me that if I worked really hard, someday I might become a "Mr".

Pretty unlikely, but ya never know :P

tallaght01 · 01-11-2009 9:00am

The M.D used to always confuse the hell outa me, too.

In the states, they all get an M.D as their basic medica degree.

In Ireland and the UK, to become a consultant, you really need to do an M.D or a fellowship.

The MD in Ireland/UK is either analagous to a PhD, depending on where you do it, or it can be analagous to a higher doctorate. It's basically a clincal PhD or a clinical DSc.

It's all verrrrrry confusing.

sam34 · 01-11-2009 2:30pm

nesf wrote: »

I don't think Dr. is legally protected though I imagine a Judge could give you a legal order to not call yourself Dr. if it could be shown that the purpose was to defraud others (i.e. falsely give the impression that you have an MD or PhD or whatever).

One of the biggest problems is that it's the same term for "medical doctors" and PhD grads. It means that it's very easy to appear to the former when you are the latter by giving generic "medical advice" and appending a Dr. to your name.

Of course a far bigger issue is that you've all these lowly educated plebians running around hospitals calling themselves doctors when really it should be restricted to the better educated people in their ivory towers. An MD is to a PhD what a Chiropractor is to an MD and all that..

wasnt that one gillian mckeith stopped from using the title doctor, as she used it to give the impression that she was a medic.

i dont remember who stopped her, or what her actual degree was. but she desnt use the title anymore

nesf · 01-11-2009 2:35pm

sam34 wrote: »

wasnt that one gillian mckeith stopped from using the title doctor, as she used it to give the impression that she was a medic.

i dont remember who stopped her, or what her actual degree was. but she desnt use the title anymore

She has a doctorate! It's from this great American college, they do a package deal, a doctorate + a masters + a second masters at a cut price rate!

I genuinely wish I was joking.

Ben Goldacre had a rant about it in his Bad Science book: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780007284870/Bad-Science (highly recommended reading)

You can probably find the piece he wrote about her in the Guardian online if you search for it.

ballsymchugh · 01-11-2009 3:17pm

ah crap, so if i really want to just be called mr, i have to do the fellowship exams?!! maybe i'll just get narky and tell people i'm not a doctor, so don't call me that!
isn't dear old michael wood's doctorate in something like horticulture, he's called the tomato doctor by the phoenix every now and again. another example of someone with the Dr AJF O'Reilly inferiority complex!!

drzhivago · 04-11-2009 2:35am

opinion guy wrote: »

Mu understanding was that term Doctor is in fact not protected at all, that anyone could just use it.

Not protected but person using the term would have to back up claims if using it for some advantage, purporting to be an expert in some area

opinion guy wrote: »

As regards the chiropractic thing. The confusion that comes about is this. In the US both chiropractors and osteopaths are officially Doctor's and can work in hospitals and apply for proper mainstream medical jobs (to acertain extent). But then the training they receive would have a more mainstream slant than training in other places AFAIK.

Osteopaths do medical training get DO degree and can apply for mainstream medical posts, residencies etc

chiropractors can not

Their training is limited to Spinal/joint mobilisation-manipulations or adjustments as they call it

They cannot work in mainstream medical posts

opinion guy wrote: »

In Europe its a little more complicated. In France say, osteopaths have in recent years after a big review by medical authorities, been recognised as a medical discipline - I'm unsure as to whether they use the title Doctor or not. But then osteopathy is very well establisehd in France and they have many schools etc etc. In uk osteopathy is also well established and they earn a bachelors degree, but afaik don't use the title doctor. I don't really know about chiropractic in europe. In Ireland there are no schools for either osteopathy or chiropractic so essentially all our osteopath and chiropractors are imports. I imagine those from the US tend to use the title doctor as that is what they are used to, but in no way in Ireland would they be officially recognised as doctors. but like i said i don't think the title doctor is actually protected so i don't think there is anything you can do to stop it. For example I think a plumber could easily call himself a drain doctor if he wanted.

Ireland never really had osteopathic training but we did have Apothecaries and people could get medical degrees from Apothecaries HAll as recently as 30 years ago I believe

Edit: In US they also have naturopathic doctors or N.D's. But I don't really know much about waht they do at all[/QUOTE]

drzhivago · 04-11-2009 2:41am

tallaght01 wrote: »

But the title "Mr" in surgery means that you're a member of the royal college of surgeons.

Not so Dr Tallaght
sorry to be the bringer of bad news

Convention has it that surgeons were trained in similar guilds to barbers in the 17th/18th centuries and thus were not Physicians or Drs, hence they had the title MR

As surgery developed and became recognised as a specialised area of "Medical Training" when surgeons were awarded the title Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons X they reverted to becoming MR again in honour of the roots of that branch of the profession

Up to recently people were awarded FRCS after basic training and completion of exams, now they get MRCS and thus there have been arguments that the MR title should not be awarded until FRCS is achieved which is now at the end of SPR training and completion of intercollegiate exams

tallaght01 wrote: »

My medical degree is a bachelor or medicine and bachelor of surgery, but I wouldn't be a "Mr" unless I passed the membership exams for a surgical royal college.

You are always a MR tallaght my man as joe soap on street who you meet does not know you are a DR at all

In the medical world however I believe you may be incorrect regarding MRCS as I believe FRCS is the title which by convention confers the title MR

drzhivago · 04-11-2009 2:45am

tallaght01 wrote: »

The M.D used to always confuse the hell outa me, too.

In the states, they all get an M.D as their basic medica degree.

Sorry DR TAllaght you are really striking out today

Few in USA do a basic medical degree

Most pursue medicine as a postgraduate degree and are thus awarded a Medical Doctor (MD) degree

tallaght01 wrote: »

In Ireland and the UK, to become a consultant, you really need to do an M.D or a fellowship.

Not necessarily but it helps academically

tallaght01 wrote: »

The MD in Ireland/UK is either analagous to a PhD, depending on where you do it, or it can be analagous to a higher doctorate. It's basically a clincal PhD or a clinical DSc.

MD is lower in UNI scale than PHD, if you are progressing well in MD and publishing a lot you may be advised to hold on for another year and submit for PHD not MD

It's all verrrrrry confusing.[/QUOTE]

Not at all confusing really

2Scoops · 04-11-2009 3:01am

drzhivago wrote: »

Most pursue medicine as a postgraduate degree and are thus awarded a Medical Doctor (MD) degree

Tallaght's more right than wrong on this one. The US system will not allow school-leavers directly into a medical degree program, but all are eligible after obtaining any undergrad degree (although they must include a few pre-requisites like orgo etc.). It's very much like the new GAMSAT route in Ireland. It's still a 'basic' medical degree, as Tallaght said; not a postgraduate degree - except in a very literal sense!

drzhivago · 04-11-2009 3:05am

Sorry Mr scoop you err also

There are a very small number of programs in US that allow direct entry to medicine as an undergraduate degree

In the US they describe medical school as Graduate or Grad school as law also is

the LAw degree here is JD, Juris doctor
Medical Degree MD, Medical Doctor

I have had a hard time working in US convincing them that my MB was actually worth something

Legality on usage of the word "Doctor"?

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