People really believe this????

[meanmaryjean]

I was speaking at a home schooling conference this weekend, and struck up a conversation with a young lady who told me "I'm going to become a nurse practitioner AND a surgeon". I told her the terms are not interchangeable- and she informed me "Oh no, nurse practitioners are going to be doctors starting in 2015!!" I made a valiant attempt to explain the difference between a doctorate and a physician - but she apparently knows better then I :)

[wooh, BSN, RN]

For laypeople, the term "doctor" is associated with the physician and the two terms are interchangeable in their eyes.

Don't underestimate the ignorance of the general public.

The world would be a better place if we didn't base our decisions on the lowest common denominators.

So people are ignorant. Perhaps physicians need to come up with a new title for themselves since the one they decided to use is confusing people.

[SquishyRN, BSN, RN]

Misrepresenting any degree you've earned or haven't earned can be reported as unethical practice - and probably eventually land you in legal hot water. I can't say I have an MS when I don't. An NP can't say they're a doctor if they don't have a DNP. If I don't have a PhD or DNP, I can't say I'm a doctor, either. Neither can a masters prepared PA. A doctorally prepared one, though, can.

'Doctor' does not signify PCP status - it legally signifies what degree you have attained. It has NOTHING to do, really, with health care! I have a friend with a PhD in religion. Guess what? She's a doctor!

DNPs and similar levels of education have earned the title. MSs have NOT, plain and simple, and they know it - as do the rest of us.

In choosing to address one element of what I had said, even identifying it in bold, you've clearly ignored the key part of my statement, that it is according to the definition of "doctor" that BostonFNP had provided based on what patients in practice associate with the term. Which only further emphasizes how loaded of a term "doctor" is. Just because you or I don't associate "doctor" with PCP status, by the example given by BostonFNP, patients apparently do because the person they respect and is responsible for their health is perceived as "doctor" in their eyes, and not whatever degree that person earned.

Edited to add: and to say "everyone running around calling themselves 'doctor'" makes it sound as those who are rightfully doing it are as wrong as - sorry, but it's true - CNAs who refer to themselves as 'nurses'. They're not, they're legally wrong. A DNP who refers to him/herself as 'Dr. Whatever' is legally correct - they're wrong if they say 'I'm a physician' and can be legally reprimanded for the same.

It's not made to sound like anything. At this point you seem so emotionally vested in the topic that you are reading negatively into an innocuous phrase when it was not framed in a context of insult at all.

The world would be a better place if we didn't base our decisions on the lowest common denominators.

So people are ignorant. Perhaps physicians need to come up with a new title for themselves since the one they decided to use is confusing people.

Amen.

BrandonLPN could not have phrased how I feel about this topic more perfectly than his last post, so I think I'll be stepping out of this discussion on that note.

[carolinapooh, BSN, RN]

Well, sometimes intent and tone comes across waaaayyyy wrong in type than it would in the spoken word, face to face. 'Running around' obviously came across completely incorrect from the intended meaning.

You're right, I'm vested. Every nurse should be, whether they want to continue their education or not, because it's a slight on the profession of nursing, in my opinion. And I'd multiquote, but I have no idea how.

Physicians don't own the term. The public isn't all completely stupid - they actually can be taught. And these people are still doctors.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

Would you like to borrow my Queen of Everything mug? I bought one for my Goddaughter when she was eleven and her hormones had kicked in, and she was going through a particularly obnoxious stage. She thought it was funny and so did her mom, but for entirely different reasons. An identical mug mysteriously appeared in my Christmas stocking when she was in college!

Sometimes my husband serves me tea in that mug. Hmm... Must be that "Doctor" thing at work again...

Why yes, I WOULD like that mug!! LOL.....I have sons and thankfully very few obnoxious hormones issues :)