Talk:Doctor

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[edit] Doctor

  • While cleaning up the disambiguation page Doctor (disambiguation) I noted that virtually all links to Doctor intend to point to Physician. After cleaning up those links to directly point there, I have pointed this page to Physician and added a link to the disambiguation at the top of that page. Kershner 18:25, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Seems like a reasonable course of action. Peyna 22:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ayman al-Zawahiri

Ayman al-Zawahiri is a real medical doctor, the name is not an alias, he was a professor in Mansoura_University faculty of medicine before he travels to afghanistan and becomes such a well known terrorist, many of his family members are medical professors as well and are very respected people here in Mansoura, Egypt. 84.36.12.154 18:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] hi... went kwon about doctor

I want to be a doctor in my future.Actually, it's cause im doing a project on this carrer, that's why...

[edit] Docotr D G Hessayon

What about this crazy guy who wrote gardening books, or did he really? He may not have existed.

What an enigma.

[edit] "original use of the term"

This article states that the use of Dr to mean holder of a research degree (PhD etc) is the "original use of this term". I am not sure that this is true - as far as I understand the PhD is a relatively recent innovation (eg about 100 years old) and the term "doctor" has been used in relation to medical practitioners, senior clerics and senior lawyers for much longer than this. If it is indeed true that the PhD as a degree has existed for a long time and is the "original use" of the term doctor, this needs a reference. Ceiriog (talk) 16:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It needs to be said that the accompanying Dab page is not an article, and that this kind of material does not belong in a Dab.
That being said, the Latin root of Doctor means not physician but teacher, and the concept of doctorates came into being at a time when the state of medicine was so little advanced that "surgeon" meant a despised lout, working with his hands, and capable of nothing more complicated than setting fractures, bandaging, performing amputations, and perhaps doing blood-letting. (Chirgeon, from Gk chir-  ; chir- meaning hand, as in chirality=handedness, and wikt:chiropodist=hand-and-foot practitioner and wikt:chiropractor=practitioner who relies most heavily on manual manipulation.) This as opposed to physicians, exalted personages who administered medicines that would adjust the humor and had no reason to touch their patients. I don't know if medicine was part of the first universities, but it's not obvious that it was worthy. The PhD may not have existed until, say, the 18th or 19th century, but i'd bet doctorates in theology were as early as the spread of the formal degree of "doctor" beyond the first two or three universities that granted them. So the concept originated in degrees like PhDs rather than those like MD.
--Jerzy•t 03:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
According to Douglas Guthrie,[1] who bases his account on L Thorndike,[2] medical men were first called "Doctor" at the Medical School of Salerno. He states that that the Emperor Frederick II decreed in 1221 that no one should practice medicine until he had been publicly examined and approved by the masters of Salerno. The course lasted 5 years, and to start one had to be 21 years old and show proof of legitimacy and of three years study of logic. The course was followed by a year of supervised practice. After the laureation ceremony the practitioners could call themselves "magister" or "doctor." Early universities like Padua, Bologna, Paris and Oxford awarded degrees in medicine. These degrees may not have involved research, but I doubt that mediaeval theologians were encouraged to do "research" in the modern sense either.
Surgeons were not despised in antiquity: Galen, the physician whose medical writings had, like Aristotle's, attained the status of church dogma by the early middle ages, started his career as surgeon to the gladiators. The separation of medicine from surgery may have accelerated after the Council of Tours held in 1163 declared, "Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine:" i.e. "The Church abhors the shedding of blood." This was at a time when most qualified physicians in Europe were in holy orders. A decree of Pope Innocent III in 1215 is also claimed to have contributed. However, in late mediaeval England and Scotland royal charters authorised fully qualified surgeons to use the title of "Master" or "Maister." NRPanikker (talk) 14:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Cool research!
I'm too lazy to go beyond WP and what pops out from my own skull, but i did come up with
so we're still left wondering whether "doctor" was applied to all the fields at the same time.
(As to theological research, i take it you're equating it to heresy, but i think you'd find that such research was always ongoing, that teaching theology was entrusted to those capable of or aspiring to it, and that heresy is not the label for "anything new" but for the work of those who were wrong about what refinements of the prior scholarly corpus would be useful to those in power, or about which interests were about to come to power.
(Actually i picked theology bcz it was all that came to mind when i tried to recall what Faust said he'd studied in Goethe; i'd forgotten law, philosopy, and, yes, medicine. But Faust is supposed to be a 1500-ish figure, so i was looking much too late!)
--Jerzy•t 06:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ Douglas Guthrie, A History of Medicine. London: Thomas Nelson 1945, p. 107
  2. ^ L Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science. New York 1934 - 41, Vol. 2 of 6

[edit] Professional titles

How does a table sound for this section? Something like:

Academic title Degree(s)
Doctor of Chiropractic DC Chiropractor
Doctor of Optometry OD, B.Optom Optometrist

This way, we could have both academic title/degree plus the common term. If you disagree, please don't simply revert edits but discuss the issue here. (EhJJ)TALK 10:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Not every dentist earns a "doctor of dental medicine", same goes for many other profesions. I don't feel this is the best way to list every profession. This is the reason I feel it is would be more correct to list the profession and then the equivalent degrees people in theses professions may have earned. Jwri7474 (talk) 22:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

:Regardless of whether or not the individual holds the "Doctor of _" degree, they are usually permitted by regulation to use the title "Doctor of _" and "_ist". What if we did something different? I'm thinking the following...

The following professionals may use the title "Doctor" if they have the appropriate academic degree or registration/licence:
etc.
Thoughts? (EhJJ)TALK 23:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC) Never mind. Looks fine to me. (EhJJ)TALK 23:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment Please keep in mind that this is a disambiguation page, not an article. As such, there are specific guidelines that govern how it is formatted and presented. --Ckatzchatspy 04:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)