Reply to Why is it considered pretentious for non-MDs who have doctorates to use their title?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Im an MD, I only allow my patients to call me Dr.--it creates boundaries that are there to protect both of us and to define the relationship. I want to barf when all these school educators go by doctor. [/quote]

Good for you.  Hope you feel better.  My internist has told me to call her by her first name.  Relating to her on a first name basis has nothing to do with boundaries or my respect for her! She also gave me her cell phone number which I only use if I have an emergency.  Our boundaries  are clear. [/quote]

I'm not a doctor, but I am the child of three doctors (one step). I would encourage posters to not view themselves as the only use case when thinking about this. 99% of my parents patients are like you, but there are people who are unpredictable, who eschew boundaries and who act inappropriately. Who approach doctors in grocery stores when they are with their families, who bombard their phones. Certain types of doctors are more prone to these type of situations than others due to the nature of what they are treating.

[b]While its great you have such a friendly relationship with your doctor you should know that many doctors who have firmer and more stringent boundaries in place do so because of experiences they have had with patients who do not respect clear boundaries. A doctor doesn't know if you're the 99 or the 1 before they start talking to you. And 1% can add up to a lot of people when you've been practicing for decades.[/b] [/quote]

If a doctor is having consistent problems with boundaries with patients, there is more going on that what names and titles are being used, and insisting on being called "Dr" isn't a fix. [/quote]

PP's response is well explained and reasonable, if you don't get it, you're trying not to. The internet has destroyed privacy, and I would say boundaries in general. Anything goes these days. For the first 10 years out of residency I lived in a doorman building so folks wouldn't come to my front door. Did it happen more than once? No. But once was enough. I was stalked by a patient who was expelled from one of the local universities in this area (for stalking me and other female physicians). After he was expelled he harassed me online for 10 years. Ten years, PP. Think that through for a second. Last month, I held a family conference on the phone with multiple adult kids of a patient who needed a shared decision model due to dementia and memory issues. We had a thoughtful, gentle discussion about this nice older patient, that I thought went well. At the end, one of the adults on speaker thanked me for my time and care, and then said, "we found one of your lectures online and I'm about to watch it!" (some of my academic lectures are findable online if you're bored or look hard enough). While I was holding their mom's hand and explaining amyloidosis, they were apparently googling me (which takes a hot second as my name has an unusual spelling).

Do you get it now? These are only two cases. I've seen 40 thousand? Maybe 50K? patients since residency. That's an avg of a few hundred patients a month over almost 2 decades, give or take. Do most of my patients not engage in these types of antics? Of course not. Most are decent, scared, reasonable humans who need help and I'm who they see. Unfortunately what our brains remember and what often justifiably shapes our decisions are the outliers like the ones I listed above.

Hence, boundaries. Hence, consistency. You do it the same way each time, enlist a bit of formality, acknowledge family members in the room, explain things clearly, etc. You read a room and if you think it's safe to drop the formality, you do. It's not, you don't. If you can't figure that out in the 5-7 min avg window I have to see each patient? Well you ere on the safe side. It's not because we're dicks. It's because of the crazy examples I described above. You control what you can because in human interractions there's a lot you can't.

If that doesn't clear it up I got nothing else for you.[/quote]

And if you think having patients call you "Dr. Larloson" instead of your first name is going to prevent the stalking you experienced? Well, then I've got nothing else for you. [/quote]

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