PharmD = Dr. revisited...

[Passion4Sci]

Hey all. So, an interesting copy of Pharmacy Practice News came to the hospital today. It was the Hematology/Oncology issue, very interesting stuff. I've never read this particular pub. before, so I was struck when I started to see this a lot:

yes, that's right, a publication touting Pharm.D holders as "Dr So and So".

I know it's been long debated/discussed here, but never before has anyone presented anything besides anecdote (myself included).

So, here it is in print... Pharm.D = Dr. Credible enough, since it's produced by pharmacists for pharmacists.

The article itself was pretty neat... about running a "lean" Pharmacy without any talk of cutting pharmacists' jobs. Interesting.

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[rxlea]

Eventually, all pharmacists will hold a Pharm.D. Right now there are still a lot of old timer RPhs who either don't have a degree or who have a Bachelor degree. The interesting thing is that the hospital where I work, all pharmacists have RPh on their name badge even though some are Pharm.Ds. However, at our other location (the mothership hospital 1000 miles away) the Pharm.Ds have Pharm.D. on their badge like MD. Maybe it is more widely accepted in some areas over others? I cannot imagine myself going around in a hospital saying, "I am Dr. so-so", mainly because I wouldn't want to confuse the patients and their families as to who the physician and who the pharmacist is. Yet, when I worked in retail, ALL of our spanish speaking patients referred to the pharmacist as "El doctor".

 

[Passion4Sci]

I think it's an interesting topic.

I often think, "Yeah, I don't want someone mistaking me for a physician" but even if they did, what's going to happen? They'll come up to me and ask a question that a physician needed to answer, ostensibly, and I'll tell them I'm not a physician.

You know?

 

[samurai361]

Unfortunately I think my dad threw it out the latest one, but we get the national journal/publication for critical care medicine because my mom is a physician specialized in that and she let me know early on that the president of that association is a Pharm.D when I let her know I wanted to apply lol. I just went to my dad's room to see if I could find it, because I wanted to see if they referred to the pharmacists publishing case studies as Dr. or not, but unfortunately like I said I couldn't find it.

But the association is full of MDs and PharmDs and there are also MDs on the board...sorry not totally helpful lol, I wish I could find it cause I know for a fact there was a case study by a pharmacist advocating hypothermia to manage adverse drug effects and there was an article about it.

 

[helloeveryone]

Wait, so just out of curiosity: when someone gets their PharmD, and say they are just working at a community pharmacy, can they refer to themselves as "Dr. ....." or no? And when you're filling papers and such (or even on your back card) can you put your title as "Dr." ?

I know for a fact that in most other countries, PharmD holders are ALWAYS referred to as Doctors. I don't know about Canada, because we still haven't switch to PharmD. How about US?

 

[rxlea]

I think it's an interesting topic.

I often think, "Yeah, I don't want someone mistaking me for a physician" but even if they did, what's going to happen? They'll come up to me and ask a question that a physician needed to answer, ostensibly, and I'll tell them I'm not a physician.

You know?

I think it might be more of a political issue. We had an incident here in the hospital where a PharmD made a recommendation (the correct one) but the doctor was so obtuse and full of pride that he went against the recommendation and it was not a good outcome. Also, a group of MDs excluded some of the PharmDs from a very important meeting (they should have been there) that affected patient care. When the PharmDs said something about it, it turned into a big drama with the MDs apologizing profusely after one of the pharmacists said, "Fine. I will just verify every order you put through without questioning it." They would't go for that

 

[Passion4Sci]

I think it might be more of a political issue. We had an incident here in the hospital where a PharmD made a recommendation (the correct one) but the doctor was so obtuse and full of pride that he went against the recommendation and it was not a good outcome. Also, a group of MDs excluded some of the PharmDs from a very important meeting (they should have been there) that affected patient care. When the PharmDs said something about it, it turned into a big drama with the MDs apologizing profusely after one of the pharmacists said, "Fine. I will just verify every order you put through without questioning it." They would't go for that

Not very good reasons for us not to have the respect we deserve with the title, IMO> To heck with politics...

I know for a fact that in most other countries, PharmD holders are ALWAYS referred to as Doctors. I don't know about Canada, because we still haven't switch to PharmD. How about US?

No, we are rarely called "doctor", in a clinical setting anyway from what I can observe. Many RPhs insist on being called by their first name, even the ones with Pharm.D., and while I think a pharmacist insisting on someone calling them "doctor" would be silly, I certainly believe we've earned it if someone refers to us as "doctor."

 

[rxlea]

Not very good reasons for us not to have the respect we deserve with the title, IMO> To heck with politics...

Agreed. Hmmm...something to think about. Maybe we SHOULD call ourselves doctor. If a Doctor of Optometry can call themself doctor, why can't we?

 

[weetzie00]

Of course we can. I personally wouldn't be one of those annoying/snobby people who have to correct everyone, but it's a doctor of pharmacy degree. Every single PharmD I've met through interviews have ALL been titled "Doctor". My PDM also signs his name as "Dr. _____, PharmD" (But then again, he's pretty obnoxious lol).

 

[illegallysmooth]

I think anyone with a doctorate degree in anything can and should be called a doctor, but in a clinical setting you've got to be careful. Obviously people have an association between the term doctor and the concept of physician or medical doctor. In the hospitals where I work, most pharmacists use their first name. In academia, research or literature I think pharmacists should use the prefix Dr.

 

[Passion4Sci]

I think anyone with a doctorate degree in anything can and should be called a doctor, but in a clinical setting you've got to be careful. Obviously people have an association between the term doctor and the concept of physician or medical doctor. In the hospitals where I work, most pharmacists use their first name. In academia, research or literature I think pharmacists should use the prefix Dr.

Can you explain why you think it's dangerous , or that we "have to be careful"?

Nurses and other floor personnel will know the difference between an M.D./D.O and a Pharmacist, and even if they didn't, all it'd take is a 3 second, "I'm not the attending" to alleviate the issue.

Besides, I can't think of a time so far in over a year of clinical experience and 2 years in retail that there's ever been a time when someone's life has been on the line and someone accidentally called a pharmacist instead of an M.D... or something.

I used to think the mix-up between pharmacist and physician would be confusing / dangerous as well but after shadowing, particularly the coumadin/HTN clinics, I can see that the distinction really isn't that important.

In any emergency in a hospital (e.g., a code), the first responder, be it a pharmacist, nurse or M.D., can do what's needed for the pt (or should, anyway).

So I just don't see the big deal.

 

[illegallysmooth]

Can you explain why you think it's dangerous , or that we "have to be careful"?

Nurses and other floor personnel will know the difference between an M.D./D.O and a Pharmacist, and even if they didn't, all it'd take is a 3 second, "I'm not the attending" to alleviate the issue.

Besides, I can't think of a time so far in over a year of clinical experience and 2 years in retail that there's ever been a time when someone's life has been on the line and someone accidentally called a pharmacist instead of an M.D... or something.

I used to think the mix-up between pharmacist and physician would be confusing / dangerous as well but after shadowing, particularly the coumadin/HTN clinics, I can see that the distinction really isn't that important.

In any emergency in a hospital (e.g., a code), the first responder, be it a pharmacist, nurse or M.D., can do what's needed for the pt (or should, anyway).

So I just don't see the big deal.

Yikes. I meant that more colloquially, not like omigod you've got to be careful it's dangerous! Sorry, I didn't meant to come off the way I did, apparently. These days, I work with doctors of medicine, pharm, nursing, physical therapy, etc. and I just find it less confusing for everyone involved, especially people who are new to the site or not familar with all players involved, if the term "doctor" with no further description or specification is used for physicians. "Dr. so-and-so is here to speak to you regarding the patient in 201" can be confusing if you are taking about a pharmacist or DPT who introduced him/herself as Dr ___. Not that any of these people aren't entitled to use the term, I just think it's a bit confusing.

 

[Silvermist]

At my UMD interview, part of the interview was with an alumni panel of semi-recent graduates to whom we all referred to as "Dr."

My mom has a doctorate in school administration and was a principal, to this day people still call her "Dr." even though she's been retired for years. Obviously all college professors are "Dr." ... heck some of my TAs are even referred to as "Dr." even though they obviously don't have their degrees yet.

In healthcare, the terminal degree for nursing is now DNP ... I would imagine sooner or later they will be called "Dr." as well.

IMO, the convention of only calling MDs "Dr." is coming to a close pretty quickly. It probably became a convention when they were the only "Dr."s in town --- now, with so many people having PhDs and using the title, PharmDs now and DNPs in the pipeline, I think the use will broaden. "Doctor" is just a word tied to a cultural convention - as the culture evolves, so do the words and their meanings. That's a pretty basic rule of etymology. It's pretty cool in this case, we get to see it happen in real-time =)

(... although I do wonder if the AMA will put out another whiny scope of practice report. This one can be entitled: "AMA Scope of Practice Data Series: It's not faiiiiiir! We wore the white coats fiiiiiiirst and were called doctor fiiiiirst!")

 

[Tinkerbell22]

Eventually, all pharmacists will hold a Pharm.D. Right now there are still a lot of old timer RPhs who either don't have a degree or who have a Bachelor degree. The interesting thing is that the hospital where I work, all pharmacists have RPh on their name badge even though some are Pharm.Ds. However, at our other location (the mothership hospital 1000 miles away) the Pharm.Ds have Pharm.D. on their badge like MD. Maybe it is more widely accepted in some areas over others? I cannot imagine myself going around in a hospital saying, "I am Dr. so-so", mainly because I wouldn't want to confuse the patients and their families as to who the physician and who the pharmacist is. Yet, when I worked in retail, ALL of our spanish speaking patients referred to the pharmacist as "El doctor".

This is reallyyy common I think in the Latin/general international population. It seems to go across geographic lines too, since I'm assuming most of your spanish speakers are of Mexican descent and pretty much all of ours are Cuban or south American.

My pharmacist told me once that the spanish speakers always call him doctor too...

 

[PharmGrrlJax]

Can you explain why you think it's dangerous , or that we "have to be careful"?

Nurses and other floor personnel will know the difference between an M.D./D.O and a Pharmacist, and even if they didn't, all it'd take is a 3 second, "I'm not the attending" to alleviate the issue.

Besides, I can't think of a time so far in over a year of clinical experience and 2 years in retail that there's ever been a time when someone's life has been on the line and someone accidentally called a pharmacist instead of an M.D... or something.

I used to think the mix-up between pharmacist and physician would be confusing / dangerous as well but after shadowing, particularly the coumadin/HTN clinics, I can see that the distinction really isn't that important.

In any emergency in a hospital (e.g., a code), the first responder, be it a pharmacist, nurse or M.D., can do what's needed for the pt (or should, anyway).

So I just don't see the big deal.

Well actually something like this happened to my husband. He is a clinical pharmacist, and he was in the ICU writing TPNs etc, there was a code. Since he is not a doctor or nurse he does not answer codes (he is not one of the RPhs on the code team either). So he went about his business and got out of there way so they could respond. A day or two later he was brought into HR to discuss the matter. Apprently a nurse thought he was a doctor that just chose not to answer the code. She was quite angry and that Dr. in the white coat that didn't respond and was right there at the scene (the patient that coded happened to be right in the room next to where he was standing).

Thankfully, the patient was fine and obviously my husband got it straightened out. But it can happen.

As for the first responder doing something, well my husband has worked in many hospitals, and has attended many code calls (he has previously been on the code team at other hospitals), and all he has been allowed to do is answer questions about medication. Pharmacists are not trained in life saving measures and in most cases could do more harm than good by laying hands on a patient.

 

[rxlea]

All of our pharmacists go to codes. They all know CPR and advanced CPR. I thought most clinical pharmacists did...

 

[rxforlife2004]

unfortunately, pharmacists will never be called, "Dr." in hospital settings. I am not so sure about outpatients setting , but in hospital that is a NO NO. Imagine if they page a pharmacist like this, "Dr. Wu, please dial x2443". Who would response? The MD or the Pharm.D? assuming both have a same last name...

 

[weetzie00]

unfortunately, pharmacists will never be called, "Dr." in hospital settings. I am not so sure about outpatients setting , but in hospital that is a NO NO. Imagine if they page a pharmacist like this, "Dr. Wu, please dial x2443". Who would response? The MD or the Pharm.D? assuming both have a same last name...

What if there are two Dr. Wu, MDs....

 

[PharmGrrlJax]

All of our pharmacists go to codes. They all know CPR and advanced CPR. I thought most clinical pharmacists did...

My husband has no CPR certification. His hospital does have RPhs that go to codes, but he is not one. His hospital is starting to CPR training for Pharmacists , but it has not been that way up until recently.

 

[PharmEXP]

What if there are two Dr. Wu, MDs....

good point!

 

[PharmEXP]

The assistant dean of UF COP is a Pharm.D. and she refers to herself as Dr. Jane Doe, Pharm.D.

 

[Passion4Sci]

unfortunately, pharmacists will never be called, "Dr." in hospital settings. I am not so sure about outpatients setting , but in hospital that is a NO NO. Imagine if they page a pharmacist like this, "Dr. Wu, please dial x2443". Who would response? The MD or the Pharm.D? assuming both have a same last name...

At my hospital, they say both first AND last name. I guess if there are identical pharmacist and MD for that call, they'll BOTH go (Or call, in your hypothetical).

Big deal...

 

[tungsten87]

unfortunately, pharmacists will never be called, "Dr." in hospital settings. I am not so sure about outpatients setting , but in hospital that is a NO NO. Imagine if they page a pharmacist like this, "Dr. Wu, please dial x2443". Who would response? The MD or the Pharm.D? assuming both have a same last name...

 

[katpharmily]

Pharm.D. = Doctor of Pharmacy
I think they can call us doctor, because in fact, its a doctor degree. A professor who has PhD degree, we call them Dr. in class right???!!!
Personally, I don't really care how people call me by name or doctor later when I have a PharmD degree.
I remember during my cousin's graduation ceremony at WesternU (in CA), they called her name as "Dr. First name, Last Name" to walk to the stage, receive the degree, and shake hands with the dean.

 

[docss26]

Can pharmacists legally add the prefix, Dr. before their name on their license?

 

[rxlea]

Our hospital uses pagers and special in hospital phones. No paging!!! WOOHOO!! (except for code blues, code reds, yellow, etc. and the announcement for the various concerts they have in the atrium during lunchtime and the Sunday worship service)

 

[PharmGrrlJax]

Our hospital uses pagers and special in hospital phones. No paging!!! WOOHOO!! (except for code blues, code reds, yellow, etc. and the announcement for the various concerts they have in the atrium during lunchtime and the Sunday worship service)

My husband's hospital uses a system called Vocera, very star trekish, you press a button on it and say the name of the person you need to call and it calls their unit, and you talk through the unit, pretty awesome.

 

[rxlea]

My husband's hospital uses a system called Vocera, very star trekish, you press a button on it and say the name of the person you need to call and it calls their unit, and you talk through the unit, pretty awesome.

I dig it. Some of the technology out there is pretty sweet. It can only get better, right?

 

[PharmGrrlJax]

I dig it. Some of the technology out there is pretty sweet. It can only get better, right?

It is amazing! Who doesn't loves to play with several thousand dollars worth of someone else's technology.

 

[Passion4Sci]

Gah, that sounds amazing. I volunteer in a county hospital, with tight funding, we'll never have toys like that.

 

[PharmGrrlJax]

Gah, that sounds amazing. I volunteer in a county hospital, with tight funding, we'll never have toys like that.

You can even call a number from outside the hospital and say the person's name and get to them. When he was telling me about it, I totally didn't think it would work. But I have seen the thing in action, and it is something I never thought I would see.

He works for a not for profit, but it is a system of hospitals, so they have some pretty interesting technology.

 

[PharmEXP]

Can pharmacists legally add the prefix, Dr. before their name on their license?

good question. My guess would be yes, seeing as a Ph.D. has the prefix "Dr." before their name. I mean, we are doctors of pharmacy...

 

[PharmGrrlJax]

good question. My guess would be yes, seeing as a Ph.D. has the prefix "Dr." before their name. I mean, we are doctors of pharmacy...

Well if it isn't legal someone needs to tell all the UFCOP because I saw all the business cards for the Orlando campus and they were Dr. this and Dr that.

I do not see why it would be illegal.

 

[Nupe954]

I work in a corporate setting and all the PharmD's go by "Dr." on their business cards and are introduced as such in formal settings. As someone previously mentioned if you have the word doctor in your degree title you can be called Dr.

 

[orangele]

Just my two cents, but I normally introduce myself by my name (no title), and then say I am an anesthesiologist. I rarely introduce myself as Doctor. On rare occassion I get asked if I am a doctor after I introduce myself, and I simply affirm that I am a physician.

 

[CK8652]

This whole debate is ******ed. Pharmd, MD, DO, OD, PhD, etc are all Doctors of their respective fields - therefore if you are any of these you are Dr. Asshat. In a setting where a Doctor could be mistaken for a Medical Doctor, use your discretion on introducing yourself as Doctor Asshat because layman Billy Bob might think you're his "Doctor" or physician.

My pharmacist had a PharmD and only put RPh on his name tag because it's not worth the time of explaining how he's a Doctor but not a Physician to everybody. He does not refer to himself as Dr at all in his pharmacy.

 

[Benelli]

Dr. seems to be an efficient term in my opinion. We call professors with Ph.D's "Doctor (their last name here)." Why not refer to a pharmacist, who has a doctorate degree, as doctor? In all honesty though, when I am a pharmacist, my name tag won't have "Dr." anywhere on it.

 

[Sparda29]

unfortunately, pharmacists will never be called, "Dr." in hospital settings. I am not so sure about outpatients setting , but in hospital that is a NO NO. Imagine if they page a pharmacist like this, "Dr. Wu, please dial x2443". Who would response? The MD or the Pharm.D? assuming both have a same last name...

 

[UES Girl]

What I don't understand is how the heck would a patient confuse a pharmacist for a physician in a pharmacy setting ?

Would a patient really think he is being consulted by a physician when a pharmacist is standing behind a counter ?

The whole thing could be easily avoided if one introduces himself: hello, I'm Dr. Jones, I am a pharmacist.

If, it's not in the pharmacy practice-related setting then who cares about confusion since the whole thing seems harmless if one mistakens a pharmacist for a physician in a scientific journal for example.


I don't buy this whole argument "might be confused for a physician" for a second. I'm becoming a donor and changing my screen name to Dr. Cheburashka once I graduate.

 

[PharmEXP]

What I don't understand is how the heck would a patient confuse a pharmacist for a physician in a pharmacy setting ?

Would a patient really think he is being consulted by a physician when a pharmacist is standing behind a counter ?

The whole thing could be easily avoided if one introduces himself: hello, I'm Dr. Jones, I am a pharmacist.

If, it's not in the pharmacy practice-related setting then who cares about confusion since the whole thing seems harmless if one mistakens a pharmacist for a physician in a scientific journal for example.


I don't buy this whole argument "might be confused for a physician" for a second. I'm becoming a donor and changing my screen name to Dr. Cheburashka once I graduate.

 

[Passion4Sci]

Dr. Babochka!

 

[rxlea]

What I don't understand is how the heck would a patient confuse a pharmacist for a physician in a pharmacy setting ?

Would a patient really think he is being consulted by a physician when a pharmacist is standing behind a counter ?

The whole thing could be easily avoided if one introduces himself: hello, I'm Dr. Jones, I am a pharmacist.

If, it's not in the pharmacy practice-related setting then who cares about confusion since the whole thing seems harmless if one mistakens a pharmacist for a physician in a scientific journal for example.


I don't buy this whole argument "might be confused for a physician" for a second. I'm becoming a donor and changing my screen name to Dr. Cheburashka once I graduate.

Well, it happens. And it isn't about harm to a patient or anything like that. It is political. Docs don't want pharmacists to step on their toes. It is the ongoing joke around here. If a patient thinks the pharmacist is their doctor, and they form a more trusting relationship with them than with their physician (or something along those lines), the physicians can get pissed.

 

[UES Girl]

Well, it happens. And it isn't about harm to a patient or anything like that. It is political. Docs don't want pharmacists to step on their toes. It is the ongoing joke around here. If a patient thinks the pharmacist is their doctor, and they form a more trusting relationship with them than with their physician (or something along those lines), the physicians can get pissed.

This isn't directed to you just my general thoughts on the subject:

I honestly could care less if physicians get pissed or not. It's about time they get off their high horses - I see drastic differences in the way our Pharm.Ds faculty vs. our MD faculty members carry themselves and these differences are quite apparent in their mannerisms, the way in which they converse or position themselves. It's about time physicians start viewing us as an equal member of patient care contributing a fair amount of time and effort to the patient's medical treatment, not just some sidekicks offering drug advice.

Passion's t shirt comment summirized it best yesterday: we are experts in our field and have faaaaar extensive knowledge on drugs that what medical students learn during one lecture per quarter in medical school. To undermine this knowledge prevents our profession from moving forward to a more clinically oriented side of patient care.

 

[PharmEXP]

This isn't directed to you just my general thoughts on the subject:

I honestly could care less if physicians get pissed or not. It's about time they get off their high horses - I see drastic differences in the way our Pharm.Ds faculty vs. our MD faculty members carry themselves and these differences are quite apparent in their mannerisms, the way in which they converse or position themselves. It's about time physicians start viewing us as an equal member of patient care contributing a fair amount of time and effort to the patient's medical treatment, not just some sidekicks offering drug advice.

Passion's t shirt comment summirized it best yesterday: we are experts in our field and have faaaaar extensive knowledge on drugs that what medical students learn during one lecture per quarter in medical school. To undermine this knowledge prevents our profession from moving forward to a more clinically oriented side of patient care.

Well said.

 

[rxlea]

This isn't directed to you just my general thoughts on the subject:

I honestly could care less if physicians get pissed or not. It's about time they get off their high horses - I see drastic differences in the way our Pharm.Ds faculty vs. our MD faculty members carry themselves and these differences are quite apparent in their mannerisms, the way in which they converse or position themselves. It's about time physicians start viewing us as an equal member of patient care contributing a fair amount of time and effort to the patient's medical treatment, not just some sidekicks offering drug advice.

Passion's t shirt comment summirized it best yesterday: we are experts in our field and have faaaaar extensive knowledge on drugs that what medical students learn during one lecture per quarter in medical school. To undermine this knowledge prevents our profession from moving forward to a more clinically oriented side of patient care.

+1

Preach on! I dig it

 

[CK8652]

This isn't directed to you just my general thoughts on the subject:

I honestly could care less if physicians get pissed or not. It's about time they get off their high horses - I see drastic differences in the way our Pharm.Ds faculty vs. our MD faculty members carry themselves and these differences are quite apparent in their mannerisms, the way in which they converse or position themselves. It's about time physicians start viewing us as an equal member of patient care contributing a fair amount of time and effort to the patient's medical treatment, not just some sidekicks offering drug advice.

Passion's t shirt comment summirized it best yesterday: we are experts in our field and have faaaaar extensive knowledge on drugs that what medical students learn during one lecture per quarter in medical school. To undermine this knowledge prevents our profession from moving forward to a more clinically oriented side of patient care.

I understand and agree to a point with what you say. I would be interested to see how your actions change after having this conversation with 100 patients a year asking if you're a "real" doctor. Or, with the numerous patients that won't listen to you because their "doctor" knows best. I think it's one of those "it's not really worth it" situation to most pharmacists.

 

[gknee]

I honestly could care less if physicians get pissed or not. It's about time they get off their high horses .

Speaking of that. I shadowed a pharmacist that works at a huge distribution center. This place sends scripts to several prisons and old age homes in america. The nurses at these places have to write down each time the patients take any medicine, and then sends it to the pharmacists at the distribution center. Each patient has a list of meds they are prescribed to take on a regular basis, but it also has a list of over the counter meds if they need them. Well, one job of the pharmacists is to see what meds they take, if any of them react with each other, if they are taking a prescription for headaches but are still taking tylenol..then something is wrong.....etc. This pharmacist told me that they will send out recommendations daily to the doctors about switching prescirptions, or taking them off of headach meds if they aren't working...but the doctors NEVER listen. Doctors decline every one. I know doctors go to school for this stuff, but if someone is taking headache medicine every day, but is still taking tylenol....there is something wrong, the meds arn't working. Instead of the doctor looking into it, they simply decline the recommendation and continue shoving meds down these peoples throats.

 

[Niosh]

Eventually, all pharmacists will hold a Pharm.D. Right now there are still a lot of old timer RPhs who either don't have a degree or who have a Bachelor degree. The interesting thing is that the hospital where I work, all pharmacists have RPh on their name badge even though some are Pharm.Ds. However, at our other location (the mothership hospital 1000 miles away) the Pharm.Ds have Pharm.D. on their badge like MD. Maybe it is more widely accepted in some areas over others? I cannot imagine myself going around in a hospital saying, "I am Dr. so-so", mainly because I wouldn't want to confuse the patients and their families as to who the physician and who the pharmacist is. Yet, when I worked in retail, ALL of our spanish speaking patients referred to the pharmacist as "El doctor".

PharmD only means that you graduated from a PharmD program. RPh means that you are a registered pharmacist, aka licensed with the state. This why people with a BPharm/MPharm/PharmD can have RPh (1990 required a PharmD to sit for the RPh). Personally I believe being licensed to practice is more important than your level of education. Yes, PharmD might be better than BS, but I would still take the RPh over the non-RPh every time. Where I work, Pharm.D is most common on badges, though you can still opt to put RPh on there as well (one pharmacist tried to put GED on his and they wouldn't let him).

As far as I'm concerned with the titles, I think it's just fine to use Dr. Name. Just don't be a dick about it; which goes for anyone who has a doctorate. I've heard some pharmacists require others to call them Dr. Name and have talked down to nursing staff because "I'm a Dr. and you're not."

 

[illegallysmooth]

This isn't directed to you just my general thoughts on the subject:

I honestly could care less if physicians get pissed or not. It's about time they get off their high horses - I see drastic differences in the way our Pharm.Ds faculty vs. our MD faculty members carry themselves and these differences are quite apparent in their mannerisms, the way in which they converse or position themselves. It's about time physicians start viewing us as an equal member of patient care contributing a fair amount of time and effort to the patient's medical treatment, not just some sidekicks offering drug advice.

Passion's t shirt comment summirized it best yesterday: we are experts in our field and have faaaaar extensive knowledge on drugs that what medical students learn during one lecture per quarter in medical school. To undermine this knowledge prevents our profession from moving forward to a more clinically oriented side of patient care.

Do you think pharmacists devote an equal amount of time and effort to a patient's medical treatment? In which settings?

Prescribing drugs is not the extent of a physician's involvement in "medical treatment," and this seems to be what you're missing.
Going over histories, physical examination, testing, diagnosis, treatments - and a TYPE of treatment is prescribing mediciations. That's where you come in. I agree that pharmacists play an essential role, but can you really say they have an EQUAL role in patient care?

EDIT: I'm not saying this is the way it SHOULD be, I'm just commenting on the status quo from my perspective. I work in primary care and in an ED, and ALL the docs I work with just get annoyed by a call from the pharmacy. Why? Usually the pharmacists don't have any idea of the medical state of the patients, both in regard to acute pts and management of chronic illness. They don't know the specs of the pt's situation, so docs don't want to hear their opinions. I do believe there should be more professional communication and collaboration between docs and pharms, FWIW.

 

[rxlea]

I know the difference between the two (Rph vs PharmD) lol

And to the poster above, depending on your place of employment, you can be just involved as the doctors, esp hem/onc, transplant, and ICU. But who knows? Maybe my hospital is the exception. Hopefully I will get hired post pharm school.