Is there a “Real Doctor” in the House?
By: Joanne Sweeny
Tags: Jill Biden, PhD, Doctors, Sexism

Image by Cameron Pickford from Pixabay

Let me start by saying that I am a doctor. A real one. In that, I have a doctorate degree and am therefore qualified to teach at the university level.

My doctorate is a PhD in law, which I earned at Queen Mary, University of London after writing a 100,000 word dissertation, including interviews with scholars, legal activists, and members of the House of Lords. It took me a little over three years and I had to verbally defend my work to two experts on the subject, who had the ultimate and non-appealable authority to decide whether my years of work merited a PhD. Or something less. Or nothing.

Imagine it. Two very accomplished older white men and I are in the office of the director of the PhD program for Queen Mary. We’re sitting in low, comfy black pleather chairs with a glass coffee table between us that has some academic-y looking magazines on it. It’s December in London. Gray skies can be seen through the tall windows. This is a modern building, which means it used to be an old building but someone tarted it up a few years ago so the finishes are lighter and the rooms are bigger and less pokey.

It’s a nice office. But I don’t see any of that. I’m sitting in this low chair, facing my examiners, holding my dissertation in my hands. They each have a copy that my fiancé had bound for me because I was already living back in the U.S. The thing is bound like a book because it is so long that other kinds of binding weren’t available. The title and my name are embossed in gold on the front and the spine of this massive tome. I don’t know if he paid extra for the gold color but it was a very nice touch.

Anyway, here we are, and I’m terrified but trying to appear calm as these two men ask me questions about my work. They’ve both read it and I’m sure they’ve noticed some of the typos I discovered after it was already bound and sent out. They’re nice enough not to mention that, but they could have. They could have asked me anything about my work or anything they wanted. There was no one in the room to object to any question they asked and there was no time limit for the examination. They could have kept me there for hours.

But they didn’t. It was a relatively short session — maybe an hour. And then they asked me to leave the room so they could discuss it. So I went outside and waited in the hallway. One of my supervisors was waiting there and we stood nervously in the hallway for a few minutes. I had no idea how long the discussion would take and neither did he. Again, there are no rules for this.

But it only took a few minutes and then they were beckoning me back into the room. We all sat down again and they told me that I now had a PhD. And then my supervisor came in with a tray of sandwiches and we all had a lovely lunch.

That was it. I was now a doctor. Four years of undergraduate education, three years of law school, three years in a PhD program. Ten years of tertiary education and a big-ass book. And now I’m a doctor.

Except, apparently, I’m not? Some arrogant old white man (are there any other kinds?) decided that a PhD doesn’t actually confer the title of doctor. That’s only for M.D.’s, apparently.

Bullshit.

There’s been a lot of talk about that prick’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (and some very good responses) so I’ll just make a few points and exit dramatically.

First, “doctor” actually comes from the Latin for “to teach.” The term was invented in the Middle Ages for theologians and then expanded to other subjects like medicine and law. There is some disagreement as to when the term was first used — in European Universities, Catholic institutions or the Islamic ijaza — but everyone agrees that it was meant as a teaching license.

I mean, it’s in the name, right? Doctor means teacher. In contrast, early doctors were called “physicians.” These were the learned people that weren’t just apothecaries or surgeons. The original medical doctors taught medicine; they didn’t practice it. Over time, the M.D. became more popular, particularly in the United States, as a term for a practitioner, not a teacher of medicine. Aside: in other countries, medical students receive a MB, BS as their ultimate degree — a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery.

Fine, you have a doctorate of medicine that allows you to teach medicine but you practice instead. That’s cool. You have the degree that allows you to teach so we can still call you a “doctor.” But when the hell did that honorific get taken away from the “real” doctors? The ones who teach? Why does NPR have an official policy that they always call MD’s “doctor” but not PhD’s? They say it’s because the public would find it confusing because “doctor” has come to mean medical doctor in the public consciousness. Never mind that, even among medical doctors, there is inherent gender bias in the use of the honorific. Never mind that two-thirds of practicing medical doctors are men but almost half of existing PhDs are women and, since 2005, every year more women than men have earned PhDs. Racial minorities are earning PhDs in increased numbers as well. But, surely, this isn’t about gender or race, right?

It’s about emergencies! People love throwing out the oh-so-typical situation where someone collapses and a frantic flight attendant or theater usher cries out in alarm “is there a doctor in the house?” And all the PhDs look around nervously because they know no one is asking for them. Which leads people to argue that, due to this one highly dramatic hypothetical, PhDs aren’t “real” doctors.

But, why? Why do we ask for a “doctor” in the house and not a “physician”? I mean, it’s two more syllables, but it’s infinitely clearer. And what about nurses or EMTs? Wouldn’t you want them to volunteer? So, “doctor” is shorthand for “doctor of medicine” in this situation but really means any medical professional. I suppose it’s too much to ask for the hypothetical hysterical flight attendant or usher to be more precise with their wording. They are in the middle of a hypothetical crisis, after all.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that “doctor” means “teacher,” so anyone who has a doctorate degree should get to use the title. One kind of doctor shouldn’t get to look down on the rest of us and tell us not to use our honorific because they decided to take that title for themselves even though most of them don’t actually teach, which, again, is what the fucking word means.

A final point: all of the people ranting about us “fake” doctors aren’t, as far as I can see, doctors themselves — medical or otherwise. So, pulling out my lawyer credentials, they don’t really have standing to complain.

So, Ben Shapiro, if I’m at a dinner party, no, I will not introduce myself as Doctor Sweeny. Nor will I introduce myself as Professor Sweeny. Or JoAnne Sweeny, Esquire. It’s true that doing so would be extremely pretentious. But it would be pretentious to do so if I were a medical doctor, too. Hell, it would be pretentious to introduce myself as Mrs. Sweeny. Because it’s a fucking dinner party.