People can be weird about titles. Yesterday, I was talking with a PhD person about graduation ceremonies and the color of the hoods you wear for respective ceremonies. I guess an MD=blue and a PhD=green?
Anyway, he said, "I hope you realize that even after you get both degrees you should wear the GREEN hood, and not the blue one. Because an MD is not a REAL doctorate, even though they think their degree makes them superior. Green is actually higher than blue."
Oooookay....
Anyway, on a related note, I have been giving myself some hopefully undue anxiety regarding an email I sent to the NHLBI about my grant. I addressed the email to Ms. and then hit send and then immediately realized the person had a PhD. Should have put Dr. Oops.
For the record though, I'm an equal opportunity disrespector. I almost addressed an MD as Ms. earlier on as well.
So the question to myself was: Should I resend the email with the appropriate title now? Alternatively, given that nobody ever seems to respond to first emails these days anyway, and I figured I'd have to do a follow-up email, and I could correct it at that point.
But there's this nagging anxiety. What if this person gets her nose out of joint and thinks I called her "Ms." because I don't think PhDs deserve to be called doctor and then decides I am a disrespectful little turd?
Trust me. It's not like this kind of thing is rare. People take themselves way too seriously. In particular people with advanced educational degrees. Perhaps for good reason. I'll be sure to let you know if I start doing this myself in oh, about a decade from now.
At any rate. Does anyone have thoughts on this? Should I resend the email with the corrected title?
6 Pearls of Wisdom:
Is there any way you can guesstimate the probability of offense (like if it's greater than 50%, resend, if not, let it go...)? In general, I would say not to call attention to the mistake, since most people tend to skim their emails at best anyway, but I haven't worked in academia, so things may be different.
If you're really worried, another tactic might be to call under some pretense & talk up the admin to try & gauge whether this person would be offended, but again, not sure if this works in your field. Good luck!
I am female, and I have a PhD in biomedical engineering. I worked with plenty of MDs and PhDs in grad school, and I also interact with both at the medical device company where I now work. I have ONLY ever met MDs who insist on being referred to as "Dr." while every PhD I have ever met (not including professors of mine as an undergrad) says "no, no, call me 'firstname'." (One exception: folks who have had their PhDs for less than 3 months and are getting a kick out of the novelty of it all like to be called Dr. ____; I fell into this shameful category when I first graduated.)
It's the other way around: MD = green, PhD (biology) = blue. I think the blue ones are prettier, so I'd rather wear that one, but if I need to wear it again, I would do it based on function. If I were at a PhD function, I'd wear blue, and at med school one, I'd wear blue.
Thanks for the correction Cara!
At some universities, the assumption is that everyone has a doctorate, so there's really no point to using the title, and on one ever does. At such places "professor" is the valued title (IF you get to use it).
At other places, doctorates are rarer, so the title's more likely to be used to distinguish.
I'm guessing you're at an institution where everyone's got a doctorate (or other terminal degree), so I wouldn't worry about it.
The hood you wear, once you're entitled, should probably be, as Cara suggests, the one that best fits the function you're attending. But really, no one much cares; I've lent my regalia out several times to people from different schools and with different degrees.
You'll probably get to the point where you're more than happy to skip wearing the silly outfit after your hooding + two occasions.
Cara is correct. MD is green.
I wouldn't resend. I know people who get all crazy about this crap, but most will just see it as a nothing, or not even notice.
I get the occasional "Mr. Grumpy" and it doesn't phase me.
And I don't care if my staff or hospital staff call me by my first name. Mary routinely calls me far worse. And I don't blame her.
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