Life Musings

I previously wrote about the issue of whether JD holders (that is, lawyers) should be considered to be doctors. More specifically, I posted the opinion that was offered by a lawyer of my acquaintance.

This reminded me of some comments that I once read from an attorney who did not consider PhDs to be "real doctors." He said that if you ask the general public, they would think of physicians as the real doctorate holders. I think that's a poor argument; after all, the general public probably thinks that the so-called "law of averages" is a genuine principle of probability. The majority is very often wrong.

Moreover, I think that many Americans DO understand that there are "doctors" who are not physicians. Again, remember Dr. Martin Luther King? If one were to suggest that he should not be referred to by that title, I think that a great many would protest.

This same lawyer ignorantly said that the MD program takes more time and effort than PhD programs do. That's simply absurd. Now, I'll grant that some PhD degrees MIGHT require less effort and mental acumen than an MD, but I daresay that few knowledgeable people would say that MDs generally take more time and effort than a PhD would.

Here's what I said when he insisted that most Americans would only consider MDs to be "real" doctorates, based on the "fact" that they require more time and more intense labor:

And they would be wrong. A Ph.D. typically takes more time than an M.D., not less. Furthermore, since it requires both mastery of one's field and an original contribution to that field, I stand by my assertion that it involves greater scope. (Note: I'm not saying that medical degrees are easy to get. Not at all. I merely say that anyone who thinks that a Ph.D. requires less time and study than an M.D. is woefully misinformed.)