V Doctor

[Kym Wash]

Doctoris an academic title that originates from the Latin word of the same spelling and meaning.[1] The word is originally an agentive noun of the Latin verb docēre [dɔˈkeːrɛ] 'to teach'. It has been used as an academic title in Europe since the 13th century, when the first doctorates were awarded at the University of Bologna and the University of Paris.

Having become established in European universities, this usage spread around the world. Contracted "Dr" or "Dr.", it is used as a designation for a person who has obtained a doctorate (commonly a PhD/DPhil). In past usage, the term could be applied to any learned person. In many parts of the world today it is also used by medical practitioners, regardless of whether they hold a doctoral-level degree.

The Doctor of Philosophy was originally a degree granted by a university to learned individuals who had achieved the approval of their peers and who had demonstrated a long and productive career in the field of philosophy (in the broad sense of the term, meaning the pursuit of knowledge). The appellation "Doctor" (from Latin: teacher) was usually awarded only when the individual was in middle age. It indicated a life dedicated to learning, knowledge, and the spread of knowledge. The PhD entered widespread use in the 19th century at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin as a degree to be granted to someone who had undertaken original research in the sciences or humanities. Prior to the formal degree, the contemporary doctorate (PhD), arguably, arose in Leipzig as a successor to the Master's degree in 1652 (Dr. habil).[4]

In some European countries, such as Italy and Portugal, "Doctor" became a title given to all or most degree holders, not just those with doctorates.[5][6]As a result, the title is now used by many professionals in these countries, including those such as lawyers who are not normally granted the title elsewhere.[7][8] The title is also used for lawyers in South America, where they have traditionally earned doctoral degrees,[9][10][11][12] as well as in the former Portuguese territories of Goa in India and Macau in China.[13]

The primary meaning of Doctor in English has historically been with reference to the holder of a doctoral degree.[14] These particularly referred to the ancient faculties of divinity, law and medicine, sometimes with the addition of music, which were the only doctoral degrees offered until the 19th century. During the 19th century, PhDs became increasingly common in Britain, although to obtain the degree it was necessary to travel to continental Europe or (from 1861) to the United States, as the degree was not awarded in the UK until 1917.

However, the title, not being protected by law, was adopted by quacks.[15] As a result, by the mid 19th century, it was normal in the UK to omit the title "Dr" when addressing letters to those holding doctoral degrees, and instead write the abbreviated form of the degree after the name, e.g., "The Reverend Robert Phelps, D.D.", "Thomas Elliotson, Esq. M.D.", or "John Lindsey, Esq. Ph.D.", in order to avoid classing academic doctors "with the village apothecary and the farrier" and various "quacks in literature, science, or art".[16] In the US it similarly became customary to use post-nominals rather than the title of Doctor when addressing letters.[17] All those with doctoral degrees continued to use the title professionally and socially.[18]

Despite being historically associated with doctorates in law, the title of doctor for lawyers has not customarily been used in English-speaking countries, where lawyers were traditionally not required to have a university degree and were trained by other lawyers by apprenticeship or in the Inns of Court.[19] The exception being those areas where, up to the 19th century, civil law rather than common law was the governing tradition, including admiralty law, probate and ecclesiastical law: such cases were heard in the Doctor's Commons, and argued by advocates who held degrees either of doctor of civil law at Oxford or doctor of law at Cambridge. As such, lawyers practicing common law in England were not doctoral candidates and had not earned a doctorate. When university degrees became more common for those wanting to qualify as a lawyer in England, the degree awarded was the Bachelor of Laws (LLB). Similarly in the US, even though degrees became standard for lawyers much earlier, the degree was again the LLB, only becoming the Juris Doctor (JD) generally in the latter half of the 20th century.

In many English-speaking countries, it is common to refer to physicians by the title of doctor, even when they do not hold a doctoral level qualification. The word Doctor has long had a secondary meaning in English of physician, e.g., in Johnson's Dictionary, which quotes its use with this meaning by Shakespeare.[14] In the US, the medical societies established the proprietary medical colleges in the 19th century to award their own MDs,[20] but in the UK and the British Empire, where degree granting was strictly controlled, this was not an option. The usage of the title to refer to medical practitioners, even when they did not hold doctoral degrees, was common by the mid 18th century.[21] However, the first official recognition of Doctor being applied as a title to medical practitioners regardless of whether they held a doctoral degree was in 1838, when the Royal College of Physicians resolved that it would "regard in the same light, and address by the same appellation, all who have obtained its diploma, whether they have graduated elsewhere or not."[22][23]

Regulation of the medical profession also took place in the United States in the latter half of the 19th century, preventing quacks from using the title of Doctor.[35] However, medical usage of the title was far from exclusive, with it being acknowledged that other doctorate holders could use the title and that dentists and veterinarians frequently did.[36] The Etiquette of To-day, published in 1913, recommended addressing letters to physicians "(full name), M.D." and those to other people holding doctorates "Dr. (full name)", although both were "Dr." in the salutation and only physicians were explicitly said to include their title on their visiting card.[37] By the 1920s there were a great variety of doctorates in the US, many of them taking entrants directly from high school, and ranging from the Doctor of Chiropractic (DC), which (at the time) required only two or three years of college-level education,[note 1] up to the PhD. All doctoral degree holders, with the exception of the JD, were customarily addressed as "Doctor", but the title was also regularly used, without doctoral degrees, by pharmacists, ministers of religion, teachers and chiropodists, and sometimes by other professions such as beauty practitioners, patent medicine manufacturers, etc.[39]

By the 1940s, the widespread usage of the title in the US was under threat. A 1944 article claimed that "the Ph.D. has immediate and far-reaching value of social as well as economic nature" due to America's "national fondness for the tinsel of titles", but went on to note that some universities were moving away from using the title, concluding that "it is ungracious in most environments not to render unto the Doctor of Philosophy his 'Doctor' title".[40] The same writer noted in a letter to the Journal of Higher Education in 1948 that Alfred University had banned the use of the title for faculty (while retaining it for the president and deans) "in a strange move professedly designed to uphold and promote 'democracy' and 'Americanism'".[41] However, it was noted in 1959 that professors with PhDs were now generally addressed as "Doctor", with the title of "Professor" sometimes being substituted for those without doctorates, leading to a decline in the perceived value of that title.[42]In the 1960s the inconsistent usage at American universities and colleges was mentioned in the New York Times Book Review and the editor of Science noted that: "In some universities, administrators call all Ph.D.'s 'Mister,' but students and colleagues call them 'Doctor.' Often, but not always, Ph.D.'s are 'Misters' socially. In industry and government, both socially and professionally, they are 'Doctors,' as they are also in the pages of the New Yorker, Time, the Saturday Review, and the New York Times."[43] In 1965, the League of Women Voters designated MDs "Dr." and PhDs "Mr." at a hustings in Princeton, leading to a letter of protest in Science; it was reported that the League believed PhDs would be embarrassed by the title, and that etiquette writers differed in whether PhDs used the title.[44] In 1970, reverse snobbism in the face of the rising number of "discount doctorates" was linked to professors at prestigious universities wanting to be called "mister".[45]

In 2018, a decision by The Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada to update its style guide so as to restrict the use of the title Doctor to medics led to a backlash on Twitter, particularly by women with PhDs, using the #ImmodestWomen hashtag. This was widely reported on internationally and led to The Globe and Mail reverting to its earlier style of using Doctor for both physicians and PhD holders.[58][59][60][61] The Canadian University of Calgary also announced that it would adopt the use of Doctor for those with doctoral degrees, breaking with the style recommended by the Canadian Press.[62]

Throughout much of the academic world, the term Doctor refers to someone who has earned a doctoral degree (highest degree) from a university.[63] This is normally the Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated PhD (sometimes Ph.D. in North America) from the Latin Philosophiae Doctor or DPhil from its English name,[64] or equivalent research doctorates at level 8 of the International Standard Classification of Education 2011 classifications (ISCED 2011) or level 6 of the ISCED 1997 classifications. Beyond academia (but specifically in the anglophone world, Italy, and France), Doctor as a noun normally refers to a medical practitioner,[63] who would usually hold a qualification at level 7 of ISCED 2011/level 5 of ISCED 1997 such as the British MBBS or the American MD or DO.[65]

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