Who Should Be Called a ‘Doctor’?

Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association, remembers the day well. She was at a meeting of administrators at the hospital where she worked and the physicians there were addressing each other by first name. Mensik Kennedy assumed everyone would be on a first name basis. But when she followed suit, the informal tone of the meeting quickly changed. “I was corrected,” she recalled. “They said, ‘No, no, no, this is Dr. Smith.’” Mensik Kennedy, who has a doctorate in nursing, was indignant. She thought to herself: “Well then, if I’m going to call you, Dr. Smith, you’re going to call me, Dr. Mensik Kennedy.” It was not the first time that she’d experienced such an “air of disrespect” from medical doctors who don’t view other health care practitioners with doctoral degrees, but not M.D.s, as being actual doctors.