Talk:Physician

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Would the title of this page not be better as "Doctor of Medicine". As far as I am aware "Doctor of medicine" would be what people in the US first thought of if they were asked to describe who a doctor was, and (and here I have to admit I have to go on US dramas) people describe medical doctors as "doctors" more than they do physicians. Also in most other parts of the world physician has a more more defined role. Therefore the title most appropriate would surely be "Doctor of Medicine" as this would differentiate between someone who holds a doctorate. Judderman85 15:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

An "internist" refers to a physician who practices Internal Medicine. I changed D.O. from "Doctor of Osteopathy" to "Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine", which is the official title according to the American Osteopathic Association. A dentist is not a medical doctor or doctor of osteopathic medicine. Dentists attend dental schools which grant the D.M.D. or D.D.S. degree.

Question: Is a dentist a specialization of physician?--User:LA2

Not in France (only the first year of studies is common to both professions). But there are specialized physicians (stomatologists) and surgeons (chirurgiens maxillo-faciaux) whose job overlaps more or less with that of dentists. Apokrif 11:25, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Other than the fact that we are naming types of doctors rather than medical specialties, this page duplicates medicine.

User:LA2: Yes, but we need a page that's titled "surgeon" because we want to document that a person was surgeon and the surgeon page could point to famous surgeons. So that page is part of a structure of physicians (this page), at the same time as it points to the art of surgery, which is part of the medicine structure. Which other way could we accomplish this? The words exist in our language (surgery and surgeon), so people will find need to link to them. We already have the same parallel structure with scientist and science and their subcategories.---- If you want a page for surgeon, then you have to add a link to this page like Surgeon

  1. A physician is a rather American term. (From a historical perspective I don't see anything wrong with it, but it has largely fallen into disuse in Australia, and I suspect the UK as well.
  2. Per se, I don't think a physician is someone "licensed" to practice medicine. A physician is someone qualified to practice medicine (the profession is much older than government registration of its members.)
  3. The term "licensing" is an Americanism. We have the same thing in Australia, but its called "registration" here (I think its the same in the UK).

--- SJK

Yep, registration with the General Medical Council in the UK Derek
In Australia, we have a medical registration board in each state. --- SJK

Traditionally at least a GP is not a specialist; they are non-specialists, i.e. generalists. (Nowadays medical education is offering specialist training as a GP, but I still wouldn't say they count as a specialist -- for one thing, they don't get to charge anywhere near as much.)

Also, whats an "internist"? -- SJK

Minor spelling matter - I changed practice to practise, and it got changed back. As far as I'm aware, a doctor practises in a practice, by analogy to advise and advice. No? -- Khendon

Khendon - you are right - I accidentally lost your change due to an edit conflict between me & you. I think I've corrected it now. --- SJK

If you live outside the US that's true. Inside the US you practise in a practise. -- Derek

   No, in the US you practice in a practice. Practise isn't a word in American English.


What does this mean? (in the French section) "he can make replacements of liberal phsicians" Thortful 01:04, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Doesn't this article cover at least part of the same ground as doctor?

That article should be merged with this one, since this is a more appropriate title. --Jiang 02:53, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The second paragraph clearly shows that "doctor" is a more appropriate title than "physician", since the latter is used in far fewer countries than the former.
Unneccessarily Americo-centric. JS.Farrar 17:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. Doctor in the United States can refer equally to both a physician or a holder of a doctorate. It is common in America for one person addressed by another person as "Doctor" to have to explain to a third person in the conversation which one they are.
Also, please keep in mind that American English speakers are a supermajority (more than 2/3rds) of native English speakers (see English language), so reversing the current arrangement would confuse and frustrate a far larger number of Wikipedia users. --Coolcaesar 05:59, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
As may be. Are we recording human knowledge, or insular Americans' prejudices? JS.Farrar 18:34, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'm simply trying to point out that your argument fails for lack of universalization in the Kantian sense---it breaks down when one considers how each individual user (based on the probability of whom that user would be) would actually react to the proposed change. --Coolcaesar 22:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] France

Overlaps with General_practitioner#France: generalities about the first six years of medical studies should be addressed only in Physician.

[edit] Restructure

Currently information regarding medical education and training is scattered amongst a number of articles. This information is at best duplicated, but a better description would be "fractured". Medical education and training vary considerably across the world, however the info in the various articles is often U.S.-specific. In an attempt to consolidate information regarding medical education and training, I have begun combining information regarding med ed/training into country-specific overview articles.

Today I have combined the information in the U.S. section of this article with the information in the U.S. section of Medical school into Medical education in the United States.

Cheers, --Daveb 09:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur with your proposed revisions. We have a similarly confused mess in the articles on Lawyer, bar association, Juris Doctor, Admission to the bar, and so on (which I will fix when I have 6 hours to go through all of them). --Coolcaesar 18:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation

While cleaning up the disambiguation page Doctor (disambiguation) I noted that virtually all links to Doctor intend point here. After cleaning up those links to directly point here, I have pointed Doctor to this page and added a link to the disambiguation at the top. Kershner 18:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Robots

Heart surgeons are already being replaced by robots. http://www.dlmag.com/1653/robot-successfully-completes-unassisted-heart-surgery.html

[edit] Different meanings of the word Physician

This is my first ever effort at editing Wikipedia, so I hope I haven't made too many errors. As a physician myself (in both senses), I found the previous entry didn't explain clearly enough how the word has different meanings, especially inside versus outside North America. The web links show how different authorities use the word differently. I haven't yet entered any etymological references; I'll eventually try to do so. My school days are long gone, but I think both physician and physics have a common origin via Latin in an ancient Greek adjective. I rather like the old word physic — when used as a verb it used to have the connotation of a purge (laxative)! DavidB 22:00, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

As promised, I've added some etymological references. DavidB 20:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's the name of the shiny silver reflecting disc on the headband of the stereotypical physician in uniform?

I can't remember what it's called! Darkwhistle 02:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I've found it referred to as a "head mirror". Figma 02:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Head mirrors are (or were)used for ear, nose & throat examination; a bright light was positioned adjacent to the patient's head, and reflected off the mirror, which has a hole in the middle and is positioned in front of the doctor's eye of choice. The bright light is thus reflected approximately parallel to the line of sight of that eye, to provide hands-free illumination. They take quite a bit of experience to use well, and are used much less now, as other techniques are available.DavidB 00:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Doctors prone to being killers

"Medicine has arguably thrown up more serial killers than all the other professions put together." - This phrase is met in various forms in the following books:

  • Sitpond M. Addicted to murder. The true story of Dr Harold Shipman. London: Virgin, 2000.
  • Whittle BC, Ritchie J. Prescription for murder. The true story of mass murderer Dr Harold Frederick Shipman. London: Warner, 2000.
  • Linedecker CL, Burt BA. Nurses who kill. New York: Windsor, 1990.
  • Hickey EW. Serial murderers and their victims. In: Washington DC: Wadsworth, 1997:142.

I would like to add it to the article but am unsure where it would fit most appropriately, any suggestions? Malick78 10:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your work, but this information does not seem appropriate, to me, for this encyclopedia article. Perhaps if there were a study supporting these claims, it would be appropriate for the Serial killer article. Figma 18:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
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