I hate being called "nurse"!!!

[velogirl]

I crack up at something in the fitness industry -- coaches who call themselve "Coach Bob" or "Coach Tim" or "Coach Dan." WTF. I'm a full-time coach -- I do this for a living -- and I don't call myself Coach Lorri. I'm also an MBA (and a BFA). Maybe I should be Coach Lorri, BFA, MBA.....

In the coaching industry, it's a marketing tool, but folks who know me know I'm a coach. Sheesh!


Lorri (who btw calls her doctors by their first names)

[velogirl]

Even funnier to me are volunteer or hobbyist coaches who use the title coach. You know, someone who has a full-time job as an engineer or an accountant but volunteers with some organization (like TnT or JDRA or whatever). No training, no certification, no education......just a title.

</rant>

[KnottedYet]

I don't have a title. Bummer. I'm just an assistant. What drives me nuts is getting asked all the time if I'm a student, or if I'm ever gonna finish school.

Um, I have a complete degree. In fact, I have 3 of them. I'm done. This is it.

Until I go to grad school to be a librarian because I'm getting so burned out on health care and being "just" an assistant. (I've already spent 9 years in college... do I really want to spend 3 more?)

[Nanci]

You have a what??? (46,XX karyotype)

Maybe they thought, since you were an MD, then everything was under control and they could go ahead do their assessment on a presumably stable pt?

I'm a tech. Patients always assume I'm either a doctor or a nurse or a transporter!!

But in the south, everyone is addressed by Mr./Miss plus their first name. Our friends' kids call us Miss Nanci and Mr. BF. I call patients Miss or Mr. Last Name (first name is too familiar to me. There is no Ms. down here). Older people, like my supervisor, (who is a black minister in his other life!) call the techs Miss Nanci and Mr. Ken.

I call the residents by their first names, but the attendings by Dr. So and So. Unless I'm interrupting the resident with a patient, then I try to call them Dr. So and So. But it sounds funny!

[betagirl]

You have a what??? (46,XX karyotype)

46,XX karyotype = woman in chromosome speak.

Fuji, that sucks. My first reaction was "Gee a crash on the path? What a surprise " It was very cool of you to stop and help, and well the paramedics can go get bent. I can see how that would get you steamed. Maybe they watch too much Dennis Leary in Rescue Me

To add to the titles rant, I'm in school for clinical psychology which has this odd air of mystery to it to a lot of people. I don't know how many have asked me if I'm reading their mind, assessing them every time I see them, if that's the same thing as a psychiatrist (no offense to doctors ), and just a general change in facial expression that I'm up to no good half the time when I disclose what I do. Even people I've known literally all my life acted goofy around me when I first told them I was in school again. Maybe that's how they cope with having someone who's trained to figure out people's inner workings, but that's psych speak. Maybe they're just being silly/naive and need to get over it

[btchance]

Oh, Fuji girl, I'm so sorry. For someone who works in the medical profession to do that, well, I just don't understand it. For what it's worth, I'm a medical student, and it seems like when I go into a patients room whether I'm by myself or with another doctor, almost half the epatients are convinced I'm a nurse in training at some point, with a few of them basically refusing to be corrected. And a lot of these are women!! Now, I have no desire to be called doctor as I'm not one yet, and I have come to love many of the nurses I'm working with (they are invaluable), but still, I would like people to realize which degree I'm working on. Oh, and it happened yesterday with an educated lady in her 30s.

[Faust]

ok ok I have to flip the coin here. BTW thanks Dr. Fuji for the props to the nurses I am a nurse and while I was working in a pre-op clinic I would enter the room "Hi are you Mr. Smith?" the cold snotty response would sometimes be "I'm DR Smith." OOOOkaaay hi Dr. SOB I mean Smith. (Only later to find out most of these doctors were Phd's or vets.) I worked with about 25 doctors and always called them by their first name. Maybe it was because they were anesthesiologist and they gave up a long time trying to convince people that they were real doctors.
Also, there is a serious gender problem in medicine. Along side doctors we would have about four residents working, and on the days when it was an all female staff the patients would always ask "But when am I gonna see a doctor" ... Hello! You just saw one!

[Flatlander]

This post makes me smile--the problem is familiar to me.

I'm a college professor with a PhD. When I am introduced, along with male colleagues, to a group of students, they invariably address the males as "Dr. So and So," while they address me as "Mrs. Tomlinson." This implies, of course, that it is expected that a man would have a PhD, but not a woman. In doing this, we also unconsciously elevate the relative authority of the man over the woman in the classroom.

For along time this made me angry. Recently, however, I decided to treat it as a teaching moment. I now start the first day of classes by introducing myself (I always did that before; the students just didn't "hear" the "Dr." part). Now, however, I go on to tell them about being addressed as Mrs while my male colleagues are more approprietly addressed. They are always shocked and dismayed to hear this (even though they would prob. do the same if I hadn't pointed it out ). Then I go on to further explain that this is a reflection of how we place genders in roles, even when we're aren't aware of it, and that by insisting that they address me as Dr. T--, I am implanting the idea in the female students' heads that yes, they, too, are capable of earning a PhD. Further, since this is not about "I've got a PhD so I'm more special than you," I tell them, once they graduate and we are no longer in a teacher/student relationship, they are free to address me as "Susan."

To me, this is not about "titles," nor is it about whether one profession more "special" than another. It is about what we expect from gender roles and relative authority/ability.

[velogirl]

To add to the titles rant, I'm in school for clinical psychology which has this odd air of mystery to it to a lot of people....Maybe that's how they cope with having someone who's trained to figure out people's inner workings.

I totally forgot about this. I used to date a guy who was a sex therapist. Needless to say, I felt self-conscious about our own physical relationship, enough so that I ended the relationship!

[betagirl]

Velogirl - I've had friends admit to me later on that they didn't want to ask me for advice for a problem they were having out of fear that I'd think they were seeking free psychological care. On the flip side, I'm always leery to provide advice out of concern that people will think I'm analyzing them. I usually add in a disclaimer that I'm acting as a friend, not a psychologist. But still.

[DebW]

I have the opposite problem. I am a scientist and do research and publish papers, so people assume that I have a PhD when I actually do not. Among colleagues, no one uses titles, so sometimes other scientist I work with only find out years later that I'm not a PhD. I do have to check my name badge carefully at meetings and make sure it doesn't say Dr. But there's never an issue of status or title or research quality, since my work is known and published. Correspondence about my work from people who don't know me almost always addresses me as Dr (probably just to be safe and not insult me if I were a PhD). I correct them if it might be an issue of misrepresenting myself.

If you are a medical doctor and are ignored because of your gender, that's a serious issue. I was a bike mechanic in the 1970s and often was not taken seriously as a mechanic because of my gender. So I feel for you. But in your case it's a far more serious issue of patient outcome, not to mention your years of training.

[colby]

I crack up at something in the fitness industry -- coaches who call themselve "Coach Bob" or "Coach Tim" or "Coach Dan." WTF. I'm a full-time coach -- I do this for a living -- and I don't call myself Coach Lorri. I'm also an MBA (and a BFA). Maybe I should be Coach Lorri, BFA, MBA.....

We get the same thing in IT. People who sign with their gazillion certifications, their title, you name it. I rarely sign my last name, let alone my qualifications! Then when I do, I get bitten anyway, because my title is a little deceptive... I have a management type title, but nobody is truly "management" in a small company. Sigh...

I travel with my company (network security software) doing trade shows and such sometimes (answering questions for passers-by and during presentations), and I get the assumption that I'm just a marketing or sales person all the time. "Are you a sales person? Marketing?" "No, I'm an engineer." "Oh, really?" <they take two steps back, shocked by the news> "Yes, now what can I do for you?"

They will happily talk over my head, around me, behind me, next to me, to our MALE sales people or a MALE engineer should there be one. ARGH. I've had this problem with co-workers, too, it's like I have to prove not only that I'm good enough, but that I'm so good that I didn't take the job away from some man... or something. And somehow so many guys remember that one experience they had with that one even SLIGHTLY incompetent woman (probably just a miscommunication in the FIRST place) and hold it against every woman they encounter from then on out. Do they consider all men stupid because of all of the stupid men out there? No, just the women.

Hopefully the trails we are blazing today by even discussing and making people aware of these issues will help the daughters of tomorrow... at this point, it's all that keeps me from strangling people who do it

[velogirl]

Yeah, I get that too. I work in a bike shop. When I answer the phone, there are certain customers who immediately want to talk to one of the guys. Doesn't matter what the question is. Doesn't matter that I know more about riding and bikes and mechanics than half our staff. They insist on speaking with a guy.

Now, just to be a tool, I'll tell them that none of the guys are available but that I'm happy to help them.

[SadieKate]

This thread is making me laugh sympathetically. In our company is a Ph.D in something like statistics. We are a medical software company, not academia. Yet, his voice mail is "Hello, you've reached Dr. John Doe's voice mail." He even introduces himself as Dr. So and So when everyone else just gives their name and follows up with the name of their position, such as "I'm Jane Smith, I'm the medical director." It sounds so very weird to my ears, like he's constantly worried that he appears better than everyone else.

[Lise]

I got a name badge at a conference once that read Dr. Lise H--, PhD. Wow, I thought. I went to either medical school or got a doctorate, all in a blackout! We got it corrected. I was presenting at the conference, so I got to announce, "I am not a doctor, I do not have a PhD..."