HELP! In trouble for calling my self "Doctor" as a med student

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xALIAx

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I earned my Doctorate in Education and was a vice principal at a high achieving charter school before med school. I have been introducing myself as Doctor xALIAx for all of m3 without any problem. however, today, a patient was talking to the resident after I had interviewed her and referred to me as Doctor. The resident corrected her that I was a med student and this led to him uncovering that I had introduced myself as Doctor. He reported it to my clerkship director and I have a meeting with the dean student affairs and my clerkship director on Friday. I have been shaking all day I am so scared. I don't understand what the problem was since I earned my doctorate, and dnp nurses introduce themselves as doctor in clinical settings.Can anybody help me with what recourse I have? If it helps, I am a URM female and have had no red flags that's far besides retaking a preclinical class which I passed fine on the second attempt
 
I'd imagine that once you tell them that you did it because of your doctorate in education, they will be relieved you weren't trying to impersonate everyone in a clinical setting. Then they will tell you not to do that again, I'd imagine. While I don't think dnps should be doing that for a similar reason, they did earn a clinical doctorate, which may make it more appropriate.
 
xALIAx said:
This is not good for my mental health
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Just own it. Make the Dean address you as doctor.

In all seriousness, just say it was an accidental slip from your former life and you meant no harm in it. It’s not like you took on inappropriate responsibility, or performed some action unsupervised and put a patient at risk in any way - you literally just said what you are so you shouldn’t get in trouble. That said, health care people are picky about titles. Patients too I guess - when anyone in the hospital hears Dr, they rightly assume physician. It let’s them know how much stake to put in to what you’re saying, so in general I’d just avoid saying it going forward until residency. Though, even as a resident, I just use my first name most of the time. Once I’m a staff, I will expect my residents to call me by first name as well rather than Dr. There’s no need for the formality if were all colleagues. Only time I say Dr to a patient is if I’m seeing someone over age 65, then they expect more formality I think.
 
xALIAx said:
I earned my Doctorate in Education and was a vice principal at a high achieving charter school before med school. I have been introducing myself as Doctor xALIAx for all of m3 without any problem. however, today, a patient was talking to the resident after I had interviewed her and referred to me as Doctor. The resident corrected her that I was a med student and this led to him uncovering that I had introduced myself as Doctor. He reported it to my clerkship director and I have a meeting with the dean student affairs and my clerkship director on Friday. I have been shaking all day I am so scared. I don't understand what the problem was since I earned my doctorate, and dnp nurses introduce themselves as doctor in clinical settings.Can anybody help me with what recourse I have? If it helps, I am a URM female and have had no red flags that's far besides retaking a preclinical class which I passed fine on the second attempt
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You should report the resident for backstabbing you.
 
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Why would you introduce yourself as doctor in a medical setting? Are you stupid? There’s a very obvious connotation to the word and patients (well, everyone for that matter...) in a medical setting know that doctor is synonymous with physician. Your education doctorate is meaningless in the clinic and I can’t believe someone smart enough to get into medical school can’t see how this would cause major confusion to patients. Talk about insecure.
 
Newyawk said:
Wtf does you being an URM female have anything to do with any of this?...
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There is plenty of racism and sexism in medicine, among physicians.

While I don’t think OP should be calling herself a doctor as a medical student racism and sexism COULD have played a part in her being reprimanded. There might be some details missing and sometimes it’s hard to convey a story in writing, but I have definitely been treated differently than white men in many situations and I know I’m not alone. A lot of times you have to be in the situation to understand and can’t convey it properly, maybe that is why OP included that detail? It could not have played a factor as well, we shall never know.
 
Womb Raider said:
Why would you introduce yourself as doctor in a medical setting? Are you stupid? There’s a very obvious connotation to the word and patients (well, everyone for that matter...) in a medical setting know that doctor is synonymous with physician. Your education doctorate is meaningless in the clinic and I can’t believe someone smart enough to get into medical school can’t see how this would cause major confusion to patients. Talk about insecure.
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I like your nickname
 
AMEHigh said:
There is plenty of racism and sexism in medicine, among physicians.

While I don’t think OP should be calling herself a doctor as a medical student racism and sexism COULD have played a part in her being reprimanded. There might be some details missing and sometimes it’s hard to convey a story in writing, but I have definitely been treated differently than white men in many situations and I know I’m not alone. A lot of times you have to be in the situation to understand and can’t convey it properly, maybe that is why OP included that detail? It could not have played a factor as well, we shall never know.
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While that’s true, it isn’t a scapegoat in this situation. OP was clearly in the wrong here. I think the resident was a douche for reporting her, but i think she deserved to be reprimanded overall. The fact that she would even mention this as some kind of defense gleans a world of insight into her thought processes, imo.
 
xALIAx said:
I earned my Doctorate in Education and was a vice principal at a high achieving charter school before med school. I have been introducing myself as Doctor xALIAx for all of m3 without any problem. however, today, a patient was talking to the resident after I had interviewed her and referred to me as Doctor. The resident corrected her that I was a med student and this led to him uncovering that I had introduced myself as Doctor. He reported it to my clerkship director and I have a meeting with the dean student affairs and my clerkship director on Friday. I have been shaking all day I am so scared. I don't understand what the problem was since I earned my doctorate, and dnp nurses introduce themselves as doctor in clinical settings.Can anybody help me with what recourse I have? If it helps, I am a URM female and have had no red flags that's far besides retaking a preclinical class which I passed fine on the second attempt
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Given your prior postings I’m going to call this a troll account. But for real, 6/10. Better work than most. A subtle drop about “why can’t I if the nps can?”. You even threw in a pinch of URM racial stuff and a hint of sexism by mentioning gender.

Because I respect a sincere effort at quality trolling I’ll even answer sincerely.
1) You’re no more a doctor in that setting than an NP is and neither of you should be using the title
2) Your resident is right. I personally would have ripped you a new one privately and kept it between us if it looked like you understood.
3) Your school will not be playing. If you do anything except. “You guys are right, it was dumb, it will never happen again, I will do literally anything you want to pay penance “ you have a high chance of expulsion and never being a doctor
4) hinting with them like you did here that you should be treated differently because of race/gender will not go well
 
sb247 said:
Given your prior postings I’m going to call this a troll account. But for real, 6/10. Better work than most. A subtle drop about “why can’t I if the nps can?”. You even threw in a pinch of URM racial stuff and a hint of sexism by mentioning gender.

Because I respect a sincere effort at quality trolling I’ll even answer sincerely.
1) You’re no more a doctor in that setting than an NP is and neither of you should be using the title
2) Your resident is right. I personally would have ripped you a new one privately and kept it between us if it looked like you understood.
3) Your school will not be playing. If you do anything except. “You guys are right, it was dumb, it will never happen again, I will do literally anything you want to pay penance “ you have a high chance of expulsion and never being a doctor
4) hinting with them like you did here that you should be treated differently because of race/gender will not go well
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Took 8 people to figure it’s a troll a few even took the URM race bait.

Hope they are a troll because of not I can tell you are one of those people so obnoxious you truely try to deceive patients to make yourself feel good.

Did you have them put EdD on your lab coat too like some of the pathetic post bac students at my school put MS on Theirs just to let people know they sucked to hard to get into med school without a backdoor?
 
Resident was a douchebag for reporting you. I would have just had a conversation. Just keep your head down, finish the rotation and don't let it happen again.
 
Wow! You really shouldn't be going around the hospital and calling yourself a doctor as a medical student. Whether or not you have a doctorate in some completely unrelated field you were trying to mislead the patients and knew that they thought you were a medical doctor when you called yourself a doctor.

If I was that resident I would have merely laughed at you but reporting you was totally appropriate.
 
AMEHigh said:
There is plenty of racism and sexism in medicine, among physicians.

While I don’t think OP should be calling herself a doctor as a medical student racism and sexism COULD have played a part in her being reprimanded. There might be some details missing and sometimes it’s hard to convey a story in writing, but I have definitely been treated differently than white men in many situations and I know I’m not alone. A lot of times you have to be in the situation to understand and can’t convey it properly, maybe that is why OP included that detail? It could not have played a factor as well, we shall never know.
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There's no racism or sexism in medicine. And congrats, you fell for the troll account propagating that there could be some racism or sexism. Classic liberals. This feels like Jussie Smolett
 
LebronManning said:
There's no racism or sexism in medicine. And congrats, you fell for the troll account propagating that there could be some racism or sexism. Classic liberals. This feels like Jussie Smolett
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Comeon now. Im as conservative as the next guy but to suggest that patients havent been raised to believe that men are doctors and women are inferior nurses is just fooling yourself. Between professionals theres less, sure, but not nothing.
 
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Newyawk said:
Comeon now. Im as conservative as the next guy but to suggest that patients havent been raised to believe that men are doctors and women are inferior nurses youre fooling yourself.
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That's just because, in the US, 64% of practicing physicians are male (a few decades ago, the figure was >80%) and 91% of nurses are female. People become familiar with certain patterns and form generalizations based on them. I wouldn't call the phenomenon you're describing "sexist," per se, because it tends to stem from overgeneralization, not from contempt toward the opposite sex. Over time, as average Americans are exposed to more female physicians and male nurses, expectations and attitudes will undoubtedly shift.
 
Newyawk said:
Comeon now. Im as conservative as the next guy but to suggest that patients havent been raised to believe that men are doctors and women are inferior nurses is just fooling yourself. Between professionals theres less, sure, but not nothing.
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Sure there are some biases among the patients. But this was about professional interactions and OP was being told their utterly stupid action was being reprimanded because she was a URM female rather than because of the action itself.
 
Gurby said:
If you don't see it you aren't paying attention.
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259821
 
Osminog said:
That's just because, in the US, 64% of practicing physicians are male (a few decades ago, the figure was >80%) and 91% of nurses are female. People become familiar with certain patterns and form generalizations based on them. I wouldn't call the phenomenon you're describing "sexist," per se, because it tends to stem from overgeneralization, not from contempt toward the opposite sex. Over time, as average Americans are exposed to more female physicians and male nurses, expectations and attitudes will undoubtedly shift.
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By your definition, sexism exists against men in medicine. Women are given special treatment
 
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