Professional Title Etiquette: When to Use Your Dr. Title (2024)

FAQs

Professional Title Etiquette: When to Use Your Dr. Title? ›

People who have earned a Ph. D. or any other academic, nonmedical doctoral degree have the choice of whether to use "Dr." both professionally and socially. If, when meeting people with doctorates, you're unsure how to address them, "Dr." is always correct. If they'd rather the title be dropped, they will let you know.

Contracted "Dr" or "Dr.", it is used as a designation for a person who has obtained a doctorate (commonly a PhD/DPhil). In past usage, the term could be applied to any learned person. In many parts of the world today it is also used by medical practitioners, regardless of whether they hold a doctoral-level degree.

These days many health professionals use the title “doctor.” Indeed, The Canadian Press Stylebook now decrees that the title of doctor should be reserved for physicians. Physicians, surgeons, dentists, chiropodists, university professors and, in some countries, pharmacists describe themselves as doctors.

Use proper titles: When addressing someone with a noble title, it is important to use their proper title when speaking to or about them. For example, you would refer to a Duke as “His Grace,” an earl as “Lord,” a viscount as “Viscount,” and a Baron as “Lord.”

It is acceptable to use Dr [surname]. There is no full stop after Dr In conversation, use Doctor [surname] (unless invited to use the Doctor's first name only). It is not usual to use Doctor on its own without a surname or first name and surname (unless you are addressing a medical doctor).

D. or any other academic, nonmedical doctoral degree have the choice of whether to use "Dr." both professionally and socially. If, when meeting people with doctorates, you're unsure how to address them, "Dr." is always correct. If they'd rather the title be dropped, they will let you know.

You either need to have an active license or be covered by an exception. One exception is if you are licensed in another state (or even another country) and you do not represent yourself as someone practicing medicine in California.

According to most style guides, nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are capitalized in titles of books, articles, and songs. You'd also capitalize the first word and (according to most guides) the last word of a title, regardless of what part of speech they are.

When copying a title or subtitle, capitalize the first word, last word, and all principal words. This includes nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions. Subordinating conjunctions are words like after, if, until. Most titles should be italicized or enclosed in quotation marks.

A person's formal title should be used on first reference. Use lower case for titles unless they are directly before a name and function as part of the name. As a general rule, titles containing more than four words should be placed after the name.

Do you put Dr and MD in title? ›

For example, “John Smith, MD,” clearly indicates that individual's academic background, while “Dr. John Smith” fails to indicate whether he is a medical doctor (MD), a doctor of philosophy (PhD), a doctor of pharmacy (PharmD), a doctor of education (EdD) or a doctor of osteopathy (DO), etc.

It is advisable for you to double check the standard in your profession/discipline for the use of “Dr.” as a designation in your e-mail signature. In only a few professional areas is it considered acceptable to use both “Dr.” and your doctoral degree.

Generally speaking, the proper way to list a PhD in an academic or professional setting is by writing “Dr.” before the name, followed by the person's full name and the appropriate abbreviations for their degree.

After students pass the qualifying exams (if the program requires it) and successfully complete required coursework, they become doctoral candidates.

It depends on the context and culture, but in the US it is standard to go by either "Dr. LastName" or just "FirstName." Like Solar Mike mentioned, a shortened form like "Dr. Initial" is sometimes used for students to refer to you.

Their annoyance makes sense, said Debra Roter, an emeritus professor of health, behavior and society at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health. Using a first name can violate the boundary between doctor and patient. “Doctors might find it is undermining their authority,” Dr. Roter said.

You cannot call yourself Dr until you have met all the requirements of the degree. Some schools will allow you to use the title as soon as you have been told you have passed, others require you to wait until the graduation ceremony when the title is officially conferred.