Must be a cultural thing. Where I’m from, if a doctor doesnt call you by name it is a red flag. It means they didn’t read the patient’s file. Teachers would flag student doctors negatively for it. You treat people, not loosely grouped collections of symptoms. Nurses are also strictly trained to call people by name (perhaps by Mr/ms surname, but that’s part of a holdover from reinforcing hierarchies), you know why? Because our hospitals have wards of anything between 12 and 30 beds and up. Calling “Sir please return to your bed” means nothing with 40 men in the same room, you have to be specific.
On the other hand, if you work a position of power, most people will call you doctor. It’s lawyers fault, really, as they historically used to hold all the political positions. They insisted so aggressively to be called doctors that now anyone in a position of authority or hierarchy, however slight it might be, is called doctor, even if they aren’t. Including in the medical field. Tons of people who aren’t doctors in medicine are called doctors, students of medicine are called doctors from day one, administration staff in medical settings will be called doctor, etc.
It also reinforces the first part. Lowly patients must call everyone inside a hospital doctor, but doctors don’t owe any title to anyone below them. Sure, it might arise from general ignorance about how the education system works, but it also illustrates how titles are always about separating people into hierarchies. It’s just an academic dick measuring contest.
YawningNostalgia@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
Where are you from? Do you have a caste system? I’m in the US and I am pretty nice to patients and it’s rare that someone has a problem with me. Here we are called medical student or student doctor but it’s pretty clear we aren’t the ones in charge so it’s not like we’re tricking the patients.
I trained at a center with a majority population of Black and brown people and a lot of disadvantaged people, so I thought calling every man sir was a good idea, since it gave the implication I didn’t think I was any better than them. We have a long history of medical racism here. Or more rarely I do Mr/Ms Firstname
dustyData@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Latinamerica, no caste system. But tons of colonialism.
YawningNostalgia@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
Lotta machismo too.
Very interesting, ty for giving me another perspective. I find titles onerous unless you’re working–don’t call me Dr at the corner store, I’m not gonna thank a random off-duty veteran for their service, etc–because it ranks people as though some are more worthy than others. I didn’t know that about lawyers in latin america