Anyone Using 'Doctor' Title at Work?

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A question for the newly or previously minted DNP, has anyone used the title 'doctor' in the clinical setting? Curious how other colleagues have been introducing themselves.

My physician colleagues were the first to initiate the change of referring to me as 'doctor' soon after I received my DNP and made my educational training, including theirs, visible in the waiting room so patients can see each provider's qualifications.

Specializes in Vascular Neurology and Neurocritical Care.
25 minutes ago, RN. said:

Are the majority of DNP programs poorly organized though?

No, I don't think so.

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Specializes in Cardiology and Family Medicine.

Probably depends on the program. I appreciated the rigor of my doctoral education. The DNP program chair was, and continues to be, very much involved in ensuring a high caliber program. Every student spoke well of them and their dedication towards quality education for the students.

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I do not have a DNP but my patients always call me Dr.Sta. I do explain that I am not a doctor every time and the same patients will still call me whenever I see them. I would say this happens with 75% of my patients. Maybe I just need to get the DNP and call it a day LOL.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

Mr.Sta - funny!

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Specializes in Urgent Care NP, Emergency Nursing, Camp Nursing.

While I don't correct patients when the call me "Doctor," my standard introduction is, "Good [time of day], my name is TheSquire, I'm a Nurse Practitioner here." The capture of the academic term "Doctor" by physicians is a ship that has long since sailed, been retired, and had its name given to three successor ships at this point. Using the excuse of a doctoral degree that adds no clinically-relevant training as an excuse to stomp our feet and throw a tantrum over titles is silly at best, and discrediting to our profession at worst.

Further, Dr. TheSquire is a real stick-in-the-mud, and I prefer not to invoke him in the absence of undergraduates.

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I'm a psych NP with my DNP. A majority of psych nps I've worked with go by "doctor" in the clinical setting and introduce their role (nurse practitioner). Working in mental health is a little bit different than other areas of medicine since we have so many psychologists with PsyD's and PhDs and therapists with PhDs that go by "doctor", therefore in mental health it is not a physician only title. I also don't believe psychologists that go by "doctor" are superior to psychiatric nps and are any more worthy of that title. 

The attending I work with encouraged me to use the doctor title, especially since we have so many non physicians that use it. Hope this helps!

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Specializes in Family Practice, Mental Health.
On 8/20/2020 at 12:21 PM, TheSquire said:

While I don't correct patients when the call me "Doctor," my standard introduction is, "Good [time of day], my name is TheSquire, I'm a Nurse Practitioner here." The capture of the academic term "Doctor" by physicians is a ship that has long since sailed, been retired, and had its name given to three successor ships at this point. Using the excuse of a doctoral degree that adds no clinically-relevant training as an excuse to stomp our feet and throw a tantrum over titles is silly at best, and discrediting to our profession at worst.

Further, Dr. TheSquire is a real stick-in-the-mud, and I prefer not to invoke him in the absence of undergraduates.

Whenever I see a reference to Doctoral degrees in nursing not adding anything to the clinical sphere, I always wonder about why we don't marry learning the tools of clinical inquiry to 'clinically relevant training'.  We are not trained as Physicians.  Physicians are educated in mentorship-intense residencies where they are tasked with utilizing the scholarly inquiry process (DNP training) to augment their clinical training.  Nurses are taught scholarly inquiry without the residency to complete this process.  

Perpahs the fault lies not within the DNP training, but the lack of residencies to round out the full benefit of the DNP training?  

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Specializes in Urgent Care NP, Emergency Nursing, Camp Nursing.

 

15 minutes ago, RN. said:

Perpahs the fault lies not within the DNP training, but the lack of residencies to round out the full benefit of the DNP training?  

But there is a residency within the DNP...it's just that the DNP-completion crowd squawked at having to be subordinate to another provider, so it was made entirely non-clinical.  And people wonder why I have multiple soapbox rants about the DNP despite having one...

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Specializes in Family Practice, Mental Health.

But there is not a residency within the DNP education.  This lack of formal, goal-oriented residency-based-mentorship is the basis for my DNP project, and there is a glaring gap in this respect.  

Now the medical model is looking at moving beyond mentorship in residency and is promoting "sponsorship" in order to enhance this invaluable aspect of their training.  

I've poured through hundreds of articles and have critically reviewed over fifty on the subject of formal mentorship in nursing education, or moreso, the lack thereof.  

The DNP degree is not a residency-based degree and lacks the formal mentorship that utilizes the scholarly inquiry that augments the clinical training.  

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Specializes in Urgent Care NP, Emergency Nursing, Camp Nursing.

...but they slapped the label "residency" on the extra 300 non-clinical clinical hours for the DNP, so it must be true! /s

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Specializes in Family Practice, Mental Health.
On 9/15/2020 at 10:11 PM, TheSquire said:

...but they slapped the label "residency" on the extra 300 non-clinical clinical hours for the DNP, so it must be true! /s

 

I guess if you were to start a DNP school from scratch and have it be merited upon a clinical designation with completion, you're going to need to have a baseline tool(s) that will quantify the value of hands-on clinical to enable meaningful mass replication.  

What would you recommend?  I know that the CRNA's graduates are required to be DNP's now.  Does this mean that all NP's, etc, need to have a DNP upon completion?  

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Specializes in Urgent Care NP, Emergency Nursing, Camp Nursing.
7 hours ago, RN. said:

 I know that the CRNA's graduates are required to be DNP's now.  Does this mean that all NP's, etc, need to have a DNP upon completion?  

That's what was supposed to happen starting in 2015...and didn't.  You do not need a DNP upon completion of your NP Program - whether or not that's a good thing is an argument for elsewhere.

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