Joseph Lanctot, a Scripps Health nurse practitioner, said in an Oct. 15 opinion article in Medpage Today that he wants patients and his colleagues to "stop calling me 'doctor.'"
After introducing himself as a nurse practitioner, some patients and coworkers persist in calling Mr. Lanctot a "doctor." He said, "I imagine they do so out of respect, but no matter how many times I correct them, the erroneous title lives on."
To patients, the actions of an advanced practice registered nurse and a physician might look the same, and both professions work with the same language of medicine. But nurses and physicians are not interchangeable terms, he said. Also, "doctor" has unfortunately become synonymous with "physician."
"The reason I ask not to be called doctor is not because I have not earned my doctorate nor because I did not go to medical school; rather, it is because I want to be called a nurse," Mr. Lanctot wrote.
Several healthcare professionals have weighed in on this debate, with some saying the title "doctor" shouldn't be owned by only one profession. Moreover, some state lawmakers are considering bills to prevent some healthcare workers from calling themselves "doctor," even if they have a doctorate degree.
Mr. Lanctot offers another argument on the spectrum of this discussion: "I would want to be called a nurse even if I had my doctorate in nursing or my doctorate in medicine. I want everyone to know that I am of the breed of Florence Nightingale, Lillian Wald and Walt Whitman — not of Lister, Fleming and Hippocrates."