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Doctor

  • While cleaning up the disambiguation page Doctor (disambiguation) I noted that virtually all links to Doctor intend to point to Physician. After cleaning up those links to directly point there, I have pointed this page to Physician and added a link to the disambiguation at the top of that page. Kershner 18:25, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Ayman al-Zawahiri

Ayman al-Zawahiri is a real medical doctor, the name is not an alias, he was a professor in Mansoura_University faculty of medicine before he travels to afghanistan and becomes such a well known terrorist, many of his family members are medical professors as well and are very respected people he /re in Mansoura, Egypt. 84.36.12.154 18:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Docotr D G Hessayon

What about this crazy guy who wrote gardening books, or did he really? He may not have existed.

What an enigma.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Samepassword (talk • contribs) 22:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Professional titles

How does a table sound for this section? Something like:

Academic title Degree(s)
Doctor of Chiropractic DC Chiropractor
Doctor of Optometry OD, B.Optom Optometrist

This way, we could have both academic title/degree plus the common term. If you disagree, please don't simply revert edits but discuss the issue here. (EhJJ)TALK 10:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Not every dentist earns a "doctor of dental medicine", same goes for many other profesions. I don't feel this is the best way to list every profession. This is the reason I feel it is would be more correct to list the profession and then the equivalent degrees people in theses professions may have earned. Jwri7474 (talk) 22:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

:Regardless of whether or not the individual holds the "Doctor of _" degree, they are usually permitted by regulation to use the title "Doctor of _" and "_ist". What if we did something different? I'm thinking the following...

The following professionals may use the title "Doctor" if they have the appropriate academic degree or registration/licence:
etc.
Thoughts? (EhJJ)TALK 23:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC) Never mind. Looks fine to me. (EhJJ)TALK 23:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment Please keep in mind that this is a disambiguation page, not an article. As such, there are specific guidelines that govern how it is formatted and presented. --Ckatzchatspy 04:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Definitions/references

Due to overlapping edits, the summary of my last reversion addressed the wrong issue. But there is a Manual of Style for disambiguation pages, and references aren't necessary or appropriate.

And if anyone can explain to me why a fundamentally literate person would type "Doctor" into the search bar when they're looking for the article about dentists, I would probably stop removing that link. That is the purpose of a disambiguation page: to direct the user to the article he is looking for, when there is more than one article that could be reasonably referred to by the same name. Propaniac (talk) 23:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

No "fundamentally literate person" is going to type doctor into a search looking for silly nicknames of athletes, etc. My entry on health care practitioners is sourced as a legitimate meaning of the word doctor. Your pop culture/nicknames are not. You deleted almost all the medical entries, although you have no source to support your interpretation. Wikipedia is not Entertainment Weekly or Sports Illustrated. The reason for citing the source is that you want to make this page primarily about sports and entertainment uses of "doctor" as nicknames or character titles, which is in no way encyclopedic. --Prowler08 (talk) 23:46, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
You're making it very obvious that you do not understand the purpose of a disambiguation page. The pop culture usages are listed because someone who wants to read about a character known only as "Doctor" is reasonably likely to look for that article at Doctor. It is not because those articles are more important than other articles. I am not saying that a dentist or a veterinarian is not a doctor, I'm saying that someone looking for those articles will not be looking at this page (or at least that nobody, including yourself, has made any argument that someone looking for those articles will be looking at this page). I can assure you I have absolutely no attachment to any of the TV shows, films, fictional characters, or people that are listed here (until I began work on this page, I hadn't heard of any of them); my criteria for inclusion is, "Does the linked content suggest that a user could refer to this person, place or thing as simply 'Doctor'?"
If you're going to continue this argument, I strongly suggest you first consult the WP:Disambiguation and Manual of Style guidelines, both of which have been linked here many times. Propaniac (talk) 02:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

POV tag

I understand perfectly well the purpose of a disambiguation page. And I daresay, a person would enter doctor looking for different types of health care professionals before they would use it to find some of these obscure sports figures, TV characters, TV shows, etc. listed on this dab page. The dictionary definition I supplied is using doctor as a stand alone term, not just as a title in front of one's name (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/doctor). The health care doctors that should absolutely be listed as per the previous dictionary link are physician, dentist, and veterinarian. Others also may be listed. The following sentence, or something to the same effect, should precede the listing: The following health care practitioners that possess a doctorate may be referred to as a doctor. I noticed it was you who deleted (without discussion), the many references to doctors that were already on this page, and that you did so under the rubric of cleanup. Doctor would also more likely be used in modern culture to describe a health care professional than a Doctor of the Church. Two IPs have tried to reinsert a much longer list of health care doctors than I think is necessary, but I agree with their version more than I do yours. I am inserting a POV dispute tag on this page as I and two IPs obviously disagree with your interpretation of the proper content of this page. --Prowler08 (talk) 08:00, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The dictionary lists types of doctors. I do not disagree that a dentist is a type of doctor. I disagree that anybody would need help figuring out that the Dentist article is at Dentist and not Doctor. Someone would not search for Pet if they wanted to read about cats or dogs. Someone would not search for Movie star if they were looking for the article about Johnny Depp.
I absolutely agree that it would make sense for someone to be looking for a list of different types of doctors. I am honestly very, very surprised that there doesn't seem to be such a list; I spent several minutes searching for one when I did the initial cleanup. If you or anyone else wants to create a List of types of doctors, I would be perfectly content for that list to be linked from this page. But the fact that no such list exists at another title does not mean that it belongs on this page. And allowing links here that clearly don't fit the purpose of the page leaves the door open for people to add more and more links that don't belong here, and then the page becomes a horribly cluttered mess. Propaniac (talk) 16:49, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Using the aforementioned logic, most of the entries on this dab page should be deleted. I can't imagine anyone typing in just doctor to find any of the following, all of which are listed on the page:

--Prowler08 (talk) 18:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You know, you could have just said "But this page lists items that are known as 'The Doctor' or 'Doctors' or 'The Doctors', not 'Doctor'" instead of going through and listing all those items here. Yes, this page combines multiple disambig terms, which is not uncommon with terms that are different forms of the same word or phrase. Combining "Doctor" and "The Doctor" is not the same as combining "Doctor" and "Dentist."
And the fictional characters do all seem to be known as "Doctor," so I don't know what your point is there. Some of the living people who are nicknamed "Doctor" are somewhat iffy for inclusion, but I left them in as long as their article indicated that they were called Doctor in some context. Propaniac (talk) 03:42, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Wait, was your point that since you can't imagine it, they shouldn't be included, as an attempt to attack my own imposition of "POV" on this page? Because I've blatantly asked if anyone can imagine a user who ends up at this page looking for the article about dentists. You have not said that you can imagine such a user; you said that a user could be looking for a list of types of doctors, which I would be perfectly fine with linking to, if such a list existed. I don't really think an opinion counts as a point-of-view if nobody on Earth disagrees with it. Propaniac (talk) 03:45, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
I listed them to show which ones I thought were questionable. You seem to be personalizing this, let's try to stick to the subject of discussion. This page is listed above as part of WikiProject Medicine. Because of your deletions, without discussion, of all but one medical entry, this dab page should no longer be part of the project. As to your assertion that "I don't really think an opinion counts as a point-of-view if nobody on Earth disagrees with it," well obviously, some people did agree with me, since there were all these various types of doctors listed here and there was discussion about the various fields. Or have you become the arbiter of what others think? Physician is the formal term, as is dentist, as is veterinarian. Doctor is the informal term for these professions. --Prowler08 (talk) 04:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Since you didn't say why you thought those entries were questionable (and still haven't said so), I assumed I was supposed to infer the reason; I apologize if I guessed incorrectly.
I don't particularly feel that the page should be a part of the Medicine WikiProject, but since I don't know anything about that project, I don't really care either way. But that's entirely irrelevant to the question of what should be on the page. Pages and articles aren't edited to match whatever WikiProject has decided to claim them; it's the other way around.
I think it's a fairly silly argument that because people added items to the list before anyone had said that those items shouldn't be added, those people should be assumed to perpetually disagree with any and all possible reasons for excluding those items, and this assumed, perpetual, utterly silent disagreement should dissuade anyone from ever modifying the page's structure in the future. That does seem to be the argument you're applying here in saying that I should have taken those editors' previous actions as disagreement with my stated reasons for cleaning up the page.
Further response is below. Propaniac (talk) 21:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Consider what the user is looking for

I guess the question is: when somebody types "Doctor" in the search bar (or has a wikilink to the word), what are they probably looking for? Here is my thought:
  1. Most people are looking for either Doctor (title) or Physician.
  2. Very few people are looking for the twenty or so rare uses of the term.
So, should we just move this page to Doctor (disambiguation) and make Doctor a redirect to Doctor (title) or Physician (with a link to the disambig page)? (EhJJ)TALK 04:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
I feel that arguing over this is silly when it is easy to list the other health care doctors. And once again, it makes much more sense listing health care doctors than these sports and pop culture listings. Also, it's not just the search box, it's also linking. If the term doctor is linked on a veterinary article, a dental article, a podiatric article, etc. and it redirects here, which has excluded these fields, does that mean that the previously mentioned articles misused the term of doctor? Finally, several dictionaries, as my dictionary link above indicates, agree with me about the popular use of the term, since that is what dictionaries primarily gauge their definitions by. --Prowler08 (talk) 04:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
So you're envisioning an article about dentistry that links to doctor but not dentist? It's futile for Wikipedia to try to guard against all things that editors could possibly do that make no sense.
Seriously, if I copy the list of types of doctors that used to be here to List of types of doctors and place a link to that list on this page, will you be sated? I'd really rather not argue about this forever (which does not mean that I will give into your opinion if you say that solution would not be satisfactory).
And as to whether Doctor should be a redirect, I'm pretty much 50-50 either way. If it were to redirect, Physician seems like a much more obvious choice, but if there's substantial argument for Doctor (title), that indicates that it would be better to keep the disambiguation page here, even if most of the traffic is for those two entries. Propaniac (talk) 21:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Colin Bassington

Is this Colin Bassington (b. 1930) an advertising link? If positive, I suggest removal by the editor who added it. Ida Shaw (talk) 14:14, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Please semi-protect

{{Adminhelp}} This article is constantly under attack from IP vandals. Please semi-protect it for the next......15 years. ;-) There really is no reason not to do so. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Please go to WP:RFPP to request for page protection. BejinhanTalk 04:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Degrees for the healthcare section

I explained this to the IP but in regards to this, my view is that the articles discuss the issue very generally and predate the licenses. Physician for example does have a huge section on its prior background. It gives too much weight to a particular specific idea of those kinds of fields and not the general historical context. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:34, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Doctor → Doctor (disambiguation) — Physician needs to be moved to Doctor. Physician is a much more important definition of doctor than dentist is. Having this dis-ambiguation page at Doctor leads people into thinking that both physician and dentist are equally major definitions of the word doctor. Experience this by considering the following sentence:

First I will take my son to the doctor because he is sick. Next I will take my daughter to the dentist because she has a toothache. Finally I will take myself to work.

Do you know anyone who would say:

First I will take my son to the physician because he is sick. Next I will take my daughter to the doctor because she has a toothache. Finally I will take myself to work.

Georgia guy (talk) 21:46, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"original use of the term"

This article states that the use of Dr to mean holder of a research degree (PhD etc) is the "original use of this term". I am not sure that this is true - as far as I understand the PhD is a relatively recent innovation (eg about 100 years old) and the term "doctor" has been used in relation to medical practitioners, senior clerics and senior lawyers for much longer than this. If it is indeed true that the PhD as a degree has existed for a long time and is the "original use" of the term doctor, this needs a reference. Ceiriog (talk) 16:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


122.183.223.10 (talk) 13:19, 10 August 2011 (UTC)Benedict - To prove that the original use of the term doctor relates to a Ph D degree, it does not need a reference. Because it is as simple as a child would understand that the literal meaning of this latin word is "Teacher" and not a medical professional! WHY SO MUCH DISCUSSION! '

It needs to be said that the accompanying Dab page is not an article, and that this kind of material does not belong in a Dab.
That being said, the Latin root of Doctor means not physician but teacher, and the concept of doctorates came into being at a time when the state of medicine was so little advanced that "surgeon" meant a despised lout, working with his hands, and capable of nothing more complicated than setting fractures, bandaging, performing amputations, and perhaps doing blood-letting. (Chirgeon, from Gk chir-  ; chir- meaning hand, as in chirality=handedness, and wikt:chiropodist=hand-and-foot practitioner and wikt:chiropractor=practitioner who relies most heavily on manual manipulation.) This as opposed to physicians, exalted personages who administered medicines that would adjust the humor and had no reason to touch their patients. I don't know if medicine was part of the first universities, but it's not obvious that it was worthy. The PhD may not have existed until, say, the 18th or 19th century, but i'd bet doctorates in theology were as early as the spread of the formal degree of "doctor" beyond the first two or three universities that granted them. So the concept originated in degrees like PhDs rather than those like MD.
--Jerzy•t 03:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
According to Douglas Guthrie,[1] who bases his account on L Thorndike,[2] medical men were first called "Doctor" at the Medical School of Salerno. He states that that the Emperor Frederick II decreed in 1221 that no one should practice medicine until he had been publicly examined and approved by the masters of Salerno. The course lasted 5 years, and to start one had to be 21 years old and show proof of legitimacy and of three years study of logic. The course was followed by a year of supervised practice. After the laureation ceremony the practitioners could call themselves "magister" or "doctor." Early universities like Padua, Bologna, Paris and Oxford awarded degrees in medicine. These degrees may not have involved research, but I doubt that mediaeval theologians were encouraged to do "research" in the modern sense either.
Surgeons were not despised in antiquity: Galen, the physician whose medical writings had, like Aristotle's, attained the status of church dogma by the early middle ages, started his career as surgeon to the gladiators. The separation of medicine from surgery may have accelerated after the Council of Tours held in 1163 declared, "Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine:" i.e. "The Church abhors the shedding of blood." This was at a time when most qualified physicians in Europe were in holy orders. A decree of Pope Innocent III in 1215 is also claimed to have contributed. However, in late mediaeval England and Scotland royal charters authorised fully qualified surgeons to use the title of "Master" or "Maister." NRPanikker (talk) 14:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Cool research!
I'm too lazy to go beyond WP and what pops out from my own skull, but i did come up with
so we're still left wondering whether "doctor" was applied to all the fields at the same time.
(As to theological research, i take it you're equating it to heresy, but i think you'd find that such research was always ongoing, that teaching theology was entrusted to those capable of or aspiring to it, and that heresy is not the label for "anything new" but for the work of those who were wrong about what refinements of the prior scholarly corpus would be useful to those in power, or about which interests were about to come to power.
(Actually i picked theology bcz it was all that came to mind when i tried to recall what Faust said he'd studied in Goethe; i'd forgotten law, philosopy, and, yes, medicine. But Faust is supposed to be a 1500-ish figure, so i was looking much too late!)
--Jerzy•t 06:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ Douglas Guthrie, A History of Medicine. London: Thomas Nelson 1945, p. 107
  2. ^ L Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science. New York 1934 - 41, Vol. 2 of 6

Inclusions

Right, we need to have a discussion about what to include in the healthcare section. I think that Podiatrist, Optometrist and Chiropractor should be removed as they simply aren't doctors (I would also suggest that Osteopath should be removed, but I am aware that in America they have a qualification dubiously titled "DO").

IMO, the heart of the matter is that just being a "doctor of something" doesn't make you a titled doctor. You can be a doctor of mechanical engineering, but we wouldn't include that here. A doctor is a professional who possesses broad knowledge and training in all basic conventional medicine. Dentists, physicians, surgeons and arguably veterinarians fit this bill, but the rest currently in the list do not.

Also, an IP keeps re-inserting Physical therapist (against previous consensus), and also keeps bizarrely changing Physician to Allopath, which is absurd. I want to get a discussion going on this so we can sort it out. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 18:53, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Podiatrists, optometrists and chiropractors would all fall under the umbrella of "health professionals", but it is incorrect to refer to them as doctors, a term which has a much more specific meaning. As for osteopaths, perhaps there could be a qualifier for those with a DO from the US, as from what I understand their course is not all that dissimilar from an MD.Watermelon mang (talk) 19:11, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree that 'physical therapist', 'nurse practitioner' and 'pharmacist' should NOT be included, as most are not doctors in North America (although physical therapists are coming close in the US; there are no DPT programs in Canada). However, I disagree with the removal of podiatrists, optometrists or chiropractors. Podiatrists, chiropractors and optometrists all complete doctoral programs (7-8 years of university-level education) and are legally referred to as 'doctor' in North America. Moreover, In 2009, the American Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations published a document titled "Hospital definition of physician" [1] (the full text is available as a pdf online: [2]). The source describes the recent inclusion of chiropractors and optometrists into the definition of physician in the United States. As far as osteopaths go, the majority are in the US and are the equivalent to MDs, thus should be included in this list of doctors. We do not need to include specific details about the few Canadian osteopaths that are not doctors, as that is what the osteopath page would be for...to go over details of the professions. This is just meant to be a list of the professions that are commonly known as doctors.Puhlaa (talk) 20:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
This comment kinda brings me to my next concern; could we perhaps consider at least some points of view other than exclusively American ones? I don't think basing the criteria for inclusion in this list solely on the length of time required to qualify in said professions in America represents a universal view of the question. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 23:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Basalisk, I appreciate your concern, however, if years of education and categorization of degree as a doctorate are not sufficient for a 'universal view' as you suggest, what do you suggest the criteria should be for inclusion?
You have also raised the concern about the viewpoint being predominantly American. I admit that I dont know all the details for optometrists or podiatrists outside of North America, thus my contribution with regard to those professions is limited in its scope. However, with regard to chiropractic, you must appreciate that about 90% of the world Chiropractors are located in North America [3]. In addition to the 90% of the worlds chiropractors in North American that are considered 'Doctors', Switzerland also considers chiropractors doctors. Thus, the U.K. and Australia, with their Masters of Chiropractic programs (4+2 years) rather than doctor of chiropractic (4+4 years) are the small minority. I would say that chiropractic warrants inclusion in the list, with over 90% of the global profession studying to be recognized as doctors. This is a list of professions commonly called 'doctors' and not a detailed description of each jurisdictional difference. That is what the individual profession's wikipedia articles are for. Puhlaa (talk) 00:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough, I see your point about chiropractors. Just to clarify, it's not that I think length/categorization of degree is an important criterion; my concern is that only the relevant length/category of degree as it exists in North America seems to be taken into account. I'd also like to point out that the fact that 90% of the world's chiropractors are in the US is irrelevant (hypothetical example: 90% of the world's witch doctors existing in Kenya, where they are called doctors, does not mean that they should be universally accepted as doctors). Though, as I said, I see your point. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 01:39, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Right now, I'm thinking there shouldn't be anything under "healthcare" besides physician. For example, I've never heard anyone say "I'm going to the doctor" but what they meant was they were going to the dentist. This is a disabiguation page, and its intent is direct readers to the article they were likely looking for. The purpose of this page isn't to detail all of the fringe ways people can use the term. Biosthmors (talk) 17:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I disagree with the idea of having 'doctor' refer to only a medical physician on this disambiguation page (in the healthcare section). I fail to see the logic in having a page that is meant to disambiguate a term, but offers only a single usage of that term? Puhlaa (talk) 23:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I also disagree. When someone says I'm going to the "doctor", they usually mean their general or Primary care physician. Most people don't say I'm going to the "doctor" when the're they're going to the Gynecologist or the Pediatrician, and instead, they say I'm going to see my "Gyno," the same way that they say I'm going to see my "Chiro" or my "Dentist." So when people say "I'm going to see my Doctor," its usually implied that they're seeing their primary care doctor, which of course isn't the only type of "doctor" in the world, and hence the need for a disambiguation page.Gelmini (talk) 04:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
We're only talking about a section within a disambiguation page, and not a disambiguation page itself. I don't think it is likely that someone is going to type into the Wikipedia search bar "doctor" but really mean "dentist", or "doctor" but really mean "chiropractor". The point of a disambiguation page is to ensure that "a reader who searches for a topic using a particular term can get to the information on that topic quickly and easily". I'm thinking this might be one of those cases where the primary meaning deserves a broad overview article (Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Broad-concept_articles) instead of having a disambiguation page. I think the healthcare section might be attempting to do in a list what a broad overview article would do (and not what a disambiguation page should do). Biosthmors (talk) 18:12, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Chiropractors are controversial, and still engage in a large amount of pseudo-scientific practices. They are not universally accepted by the medical sciences and thus should not be included. See Chiropractic controversy and criticism for more information. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 14:43, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

While I appreciate your opinion Harizotoh, that DCs are controversial does not warrant their exclusion from the page. You will note that opinions dont matter here, only facts. Fact is, 90% of the worlds chiropractors hold doctorate degrees.Puhlaa (talk) 14:50, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
90% of the world's physics professors hold doctorate degrees as well; we still wouldn't include them in the healthcare section. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 08:38, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Basalik, I agree that while 90% of physicists might hold doctorate degrees, we should not include physicists (PhD) in the healthcare section. This is because the doctorate that a physicist would hold is in the field of philosophy. If this was an article about philosophy, then physicists would be discussed, whereas MDs and other healthcare doctors would probably not be. However, in the healthcare section, lets keep the discussion to doctors whose doctorate is in the field of healthcare like MD, DC, DO, DDS, etc....Puhlaa (talk) 15:45, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Puhlaa, I don't know if we're misunderstanding each other, but I agree with you. I'm using the physics PhD as an example to illustrate that we don't refer to everyone who has a PhD in a healthcare-related field as a doctor. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 11:05, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I think we understand each other Basalik....my impression was that you were using physicists as an analogy for why you dont agree with chiropractors, optomatrists, dentists, etc. being included in the healthcare section of this doctor disambiguation page, even though 90% of people in these professions hold doctorate degrees. My rebuttle is that because physicists are not holding healthcare doctorates, but rather doctorates in philosophy, they are not a good comparison here. Thus, while I agree with your point that physicists should not be included (although 90% have a doctorate), chiropractors, dentists, vets, etc. should be included (because they have a healthcare-related doctorate).Puhlaa (talk) 15:14, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
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