I am not sure where this should go so I will put it here.

If a person receives an honorary doctor's degree (Phd, I suppose) from a university, are they entitled to call themselves Doctor So-and-so, even if their actual education amounts to less than that?

DD

Yes. What it is, is life experience is considered as opposed to actual earned credit hours. This can be true for other degrees too; for example, in some places, being a Certified Nurses' Aide counts towards a Nursing degree.

Many believe, and I am among them, that the title Doctor belongs to those holding an MD, and to many active practitioners of the healing arts...but that it is not really proper to use the title to indicate that you have a PhD....and using the title when your degree is an honorary one is begging for questions you would rather not answer in, for example, a job interview...."So, Dr. Suchandsuch, what was the subject of your Doctoral Thesis?"
"I see you recieved your PhD from XYZ University...Went there myself....Tell me, did you have any classes with Professor Whitherstone?"

If I,myself, recieved an honorary degree, I would not use the title "Doctor".

Honorary doctorates are generally in the form of an L.L.D. (doctor of laws) or Litt. D. (doctor of literature/doctor of letters), not a Ph.D. According to the dictionary, it is appropriate to address people awarded honorary doctorates as doctor, but I don't know how it is really done in practice.


I have to disagree with MrsS on the Ph.D. It does, after all, stand for doctor of philosophy. Doctor was aplied to people 'learned' in the non-medical arts well before it was applied to medical doctors, and actually comes from a latin word meaning "to teach."

Indeed Methos. The US will have taken the titles from Europe, specifically the UK. It refers to the highest degree awarded by universities . Medicine has taken the style Doctor for people who, in academe, would not be 'Doctor'here.Every local practitioner of medicine, however humble, is 'Doctor' . Our surgeons, for historical reasons, are not styled Dr but Mr.They may be the greatest medical practitioners in the land but they have long passed the rank of mere doctor of medicine; as students their ambition was to be doctor for as short a time as possible before reverting to Mr . They remain so unless they teach other doctors in which case they may be styled Professor.

The honorary degree does not confer the status of a Ph.D. and the holder is not entitled to the style 'Doctor' whatever the description of the honour may be.

The etiquette here, I believe is as yours viz. Anyone who has earned a Ph.D. is formally addressed as Doctor in any academic context. The Doctors themselves do not refer to themselves as Doctor except when putting their name to learned papers or in other formal and academic situations. It is not seen as correct etiquette to so style yourself socially. (This may not be simple modesty, just convenience . Here in Cambridge there are so many of them that men of my age, 50s, are automatically addressed by staff at booksellers as 'Doctor' Its use would plainly be a superfluous distinction within the University itself )

If you receive an honorary doctorate, you are entitled to call yourself "doctor," but that does not necessarily mean that you should.