Miss, Mister, Doctor: Do surgeons wish to become doctors?

摘要

Soon after my appointment to a consultant post in Liverpool I made a domicilliary visit to a lady who addressed me as Mister. I took it upon myself to give her a short homily as to why I should be addressed as Doctor, pointing out that only surgeons, who were really trumped up barbers, assumed the title Mister on gaining their surgical qualification. Furthermore, I added that the medical or physicians' qualification went back over 2000 years and that the Hypocratic oath forbade us from cutting ‘even for the stone’.