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From:  gwyee@r...
gwyee@r...
Date:  Fri Jul 27, 2001  12:58 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] Customs


At 02:47 PM 7/26/01 -0400, John Link wrote:
>Really? I believe that the term 'doctor' applied to medical doctors
>does not refer to the academic degree and is ANYTHING but emotionally
>neutral for many people.

Dear Vocalistmates,

All the hooferah over honorifics is amusing [not quite the word I want].
The director of one group with which I sang, several years ago ["i
Cantori"], persistently referred to me by title despite my pleadings. I,
along with all the other singers, called him by his first name [he has a PhD
in music]; and that's how I wanted to be thought of. I sometimes wondered
if he had difficulty accepting me as a singer; so there was a
negative/non-supportive feeling. All of the members, director and singers,
in my current group ["Camerata"] just call me by my first name. It feels
more friendly, supportive, and, in a sense, cantorially more respectful this
way.

"Doctor" derives from the Latin, "docere", to teach. I think the term
should be context specific. My teacher, Dr Marshall, is a DMA. He calls me
"GWendel", I call him "Dr Marshall". I confess that part of my reluctance
to call him by his first name may stem from the fact that he is 30 years my
senior. Maybe it's a cultural thing with me.

The awkwardness of these ruminations about honorifics, is that they often
lead to airing of resentments about physicians. I would ask that you keep
in mind that most MDs don't give a rat's-donkey about the title. Most of us
are just trying to do the best we can to help other people. In my own case,
it's my patients who have scolded me to use it, especially if I'm going to
do an angioplasty on them. One final thing to keep in mind--There's a term
used to describe the lowest graduate of the worst medical school: it's
"Doctor".

GWendel, dT [MD, PhD, etc]


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