Oh that is interesting that your name is owlegrad....who would have ever guessed we had 2 owlegrad's on this board?
I'm not a doctor, but if I were, the only people I would want to call me that would be my children and spouse. In all the hospital settings I'm familiar with, it is bad form (if not against the rules) for anyone other than DO's/MD's to be addressed as doctor. I supposed oral surgeons would be too, but they only do outpatient surgeries (and very rarely at that), so I really don't deal with them. But honestly, it does strike me as a low-self-esteem thing to do, to insist that people call oneself "dr." While "Dr" is an important academic credential, in a healthcare environment, people equate "dr." with DO/MD, and people will be easily confused if everybody starts calling themselves "dr." As laneone says, I wouldn't want to risk someone pulling down their pants to show me something gross, because they thought I was a DO/MD dr, instead of a pharmacist dr.