Titles / letters after your name

Arnold J Rimmer BSc SSc
😉

Try being an architect, somewhat ridiculous…

BA(Hons) DipArch PgDipArchPrac RIBA

RIBA seems to be most important abroad, rest superflous.

As a freelance management consultant I put them on business cards and on my website but that’s about all.

I used to be a director of an environmental organisation with several very-well qualified consultants. A fellow director refused to allow them to put their qualifications on their business cards, despite them being important for the work they did, solely for the reason that she wouldn’t have anything to put on hers.

Phil – BA(Hons), MA, MSc, MCIM (and soon to be FRSA)

loddrik – BA, MSc, (l)MRTPI, C*NT.

But you do have the most awesome village person ‘tache, rusty. You really do…… that should be mentioned on a credit card somewhere….

DrP

I use to work for a spin-out of Durham Uni physics department. One of the directors (a Prof from Warwick Uni) was also a Fellow of the Royal Society.

After he was elected he was asked to sign the same membership log that Newton, Darwin et al had signed. How humbling must that be?

He never scattered his stupid number of awards/titles/qualifications about.

An example we could all do with following…

MIET MSc BSc PGCE Idiot

Note MIET not worth having now anyway – it only means you paid a membership fee

Absolutely … wife gets a nice diary every year for my £100+.

Maybe that is one of the points some people on the thread are making.

…and even before it became utterley pointless, you could still keep quiet, fill out “Form M” once you turned 35 and get a virtually pointless “MIET” instead.

[Edit] Whoops getting old, that would have been for the MIEE.

My wife is a Dr and has lots of letters after her name Bmsc MRCGP ACLS etc etc. You can go too far with these things! She prefers ‘Lou’.

Andy GSCE GNVQ

Labwormy – I may be equally old. My wife has a Blackberry so we bin / recycle /burn the diary.

My mate insists on “Dr” on everything and showed me his driving license with “Dr”. He was so proud of it and if someone does not address him as “Dr” in email etc., he would be very cheesed off so I called him “tos-ser” or make up something with Dr … to wind him up a bit more. More fun that. 😈

BSc (Hons), Ph.D.

Tend to just use Dr for work (where every other bugger is one too), and also banks / insurance. Still being young, any help I can get to help with loan approval and insurance premiums is a bonus, and for some reason, bank staff always seem very impressed when I mention it. No idea why it would help, but if they perceive I’m more responsible than Mr Zokes, then they’re sadly mistaken.

As said on the PhD thread, our admin assistant always books us on planes with our titles – the one time I really don’t want to use it: “Dr Zokes, would you mind helping deliver this baby / save this person who’s having a heart attack etc”

I sometimes use CEng especially at this time of year when the fees are due and i want to feel good about paying. Since getting it I dont earn any more money and as the years go by even fewer people listen to me so i generally dont bother.

Dont think i have ever used my degree or other qualifications in a signature. suppose engineering is a passtime (career) that is more interested in reputation and what you can do rather that what forms you can fill in. This is encouraged by all the self made mds who ‘never needed a degree’.

I like putting DIC on letters and emails

Another Imperial DIC here. And BEng, MBA.

Never use them though, on bus cards or email sigs.

Mrs FD is a Dr, Dr and now Miss. God knows how many letters she could have after her name!

Anyone calling themselves Dr with only a PhD….sorry, but you’ll always look like a tool to me.

And I know my tools!

Mrs Bol is a clinical psychologist; a job you can only do with a doctorate, so she doesn’t even bother to use hers professionally. With clients, she worries that if they regard her as Dr, they are less likely to feel relaxed with her, so doesn’t ever use it. In fact, I’m the only person who does use it, and that’s only because it winds her up.

Having never really done a job where i used it, I can honestly say I have never ever put my ‘BA’ after my name.

For work stuff I sometimes used my job title (Staff nurse, charge nurse, CPN depending on where/what i was at the time) which in health professions is honest and useful for the reader of the report/letter etc: you’d want to know if your report was being written by a student nurse or a nurse consultant I suppose…

I have to use the slightly awkward RNMH for proper Mental Health Act paperwork and reports.

I have a colleague who is a senior-ish (Band 8b) clinical psychologist and unlike some other ones (who apparently are quite entitled to), he studiously avoids the use of his ‘Dr’ title at work and asks everyone to address him by his forename, as we have medical doctors in the service too. Though when he was sorting insurance out for his new car on his lunch break the other day I was amused to see ‘Dr’ on his car stuff. 😀

one of the nicest guys i’ve met had quite a few PhDs (think it was 8 with a big list of other qualifications), he was working as a health care assistant though ‘cos it meant he could spend more time with patients and less on paperwork 😀 super nice guy but crohn’s disease eventually stopped him from working 🙁

the only people who knew about his qualifications were the management/HR who agreed to keep it quiet out of respect.. and friends. the nurses and doctors/pyschiatrists on the ward didnt know and the way they made assumptions about his intelligence being a HCA was really eye-opening!

similarly when he was stuck on a general hospital bed for weeks at a time he didnt check in with Dr in front of his name… the nurses and HCAs treated him like any other patient until one day one of the slightly more senior consultants wandered into the ward and noticed his old friend in the bed, after the nurses saw him being talked to by mr constultant and being greeted with “Dr john! what are you doing here” he was treated much differently afterwards.

shame how assumptions are made about the value of a person because of a qualification or title, especially in settings where care/respect should be provided equally non-dependant on your background!

not sure what my point it.. but i like thinking about him 🙂 lovely human to have known.

I sometimes put RIBA after my name, rarely though.
Hanky – do you really put down your part 3 exam?

A few years back I was given the freedom of the city of Hazard in Kentucky an honour which comes with the title Duke, so I am a bonafide Duke of Hazard. Damn right that gets used! 😀

(Although the tv series had an extra Z in Hazard and was set in Georgia rather than Kentucky)

cynic-al – Member
Anyone calling themselves Dr with only a PhD….sorry, but you’ll always look like a tool to me.

And I know my tools!

Of course those with PhDs actually are doctors (ie have doctorates) unlike physicians – I always thought it was curious that physicians pretend they have doctorates.

AP

Hanky – do you really put down your part 3 exam?

No, I was merely putting down the full potential of the meaningless letters…

I only use RIBA in a business context, and this seems to be viewed more favourably abroad! Plus this is the one we all worked hard for, so we could use the toilets, bookshop and library at Portland Place! 😉

A memeber of my family is a chiropractor and has changed all his details to call himself doctor. I personally think that is totally and utterly unacceptable because he isn’t a doctor and doesn’t hold a phd but I am told that he is allowed to. Are there any other self proclaimed Drs on here?

Oddjob B.Eng (Hons) MRSM MIB (I think)

B.Eng (Hons).

I used to qualify for C.Eng (Chartered Engineer), but I stopped paying because it’s utterly pointless having letters you pay for rather than earn through merit.

I’d quite like to do an OU masters degree actually, but the M.Eng would just replace the B.Eng.

I don’t think a list of GCSE grades ranging from B to D and a couple of City & Guilds qualifications would look too impressive after my name, so tempted as I am, I don’t bother.

STR GCSE,B,B,B,B,C,C,C,D,D,A’Level,B,C&G236Pt1/2/C/2391/2380

I’ve picked up quite a few over the years, but only use them on the business card and a small footer on the business stationery. I think that putting them on the letter head or after the signature goes a bit too far.

Mine are a degree and membership of chartered bodies, which are qualifications that I had to work for, some of the other NVQ type stuff that people put up is hard to take seriously.

Buzz – CEng is earnt (and paid as well), MIET is paid

I personally think that is totally and utterly unacceptable because he isn’t a doctor and doesn’t hold a phd but I am told that he is allowed to.

Grrrrrr 👿

How ever is he allowed to?

I think, (no actually in my professional opinion, dammit!) to claim to be a doctor with neither GMC registration nor a phd in your specialism is proper grade-A quackery.

You can get a phd in chiropractic. And the UK professional body (General Chiropractic Council) says you can only call yourself Dr if you have a phd in it, and you should qualify it afterwards with your actual qualification in brackets after your name, so that people don’t confuse you with a ‘physician’ doctor.

Oddjob, if what you say about him is accurate, your relative is either practicing illegally by not being registered with the GPC (after all how could they let him use this title?), or in breach of their regulations by calling himself Dr. I have a feeling it may also be a criminal offence (claiming to be a nurse or midwife and practicing as one without qualifications certainly is a criminal offence, as well as an offence under our professional body).

One of my friends, a medical Dr has stopped using the title when booking fights etc as he hates being disturbed just cause somebody has a nosebleed!

Only BVMS MRCVS after mine, my wifes Phd, surgery certificate, surgery diploma, teaching quals and vet degree use too much ink!

“Buzz – CEng is earnt (and paid as well)”

Indeed, and in fact I earned it, was awarded it, and used it for a while. But I objected to continuing paying for it when it seemed to hold no value other than propping-up my self-esteem. So I stopped paying and using the letters.

The institute doesn’t seem bothered, industry doesn’t seem bothered, and so neither am I. It’s a curiosity that, should I wish to re-apply, I would not qualify because they raised the bar on minimum academic qualifications!

I think it was the banality and irrelevance of the newsletter that put me off most of all 😉

In most countries (except the UK) those sorts of things carry a lot of weight. A PhD is considered a real achievement in China / India and gets a very favourable reception, whereas I normally think ‘dossing student’ when I see it on someone’s card here.

I remember telling a restaurant owner I was an Engineer is a random town in Turkey a few years back. He disappeared and promptly came back with his daughter and started giving me the sales pitch for marriage. Very weird….

What do I need to do to get MIB after my name? I quite fancy that one 😆

I think, (no actually in my professional opinion, dammit!) to claim to be a doctor with neither GMC registration nor a phd in your specialism is proper grade-A quackery

Not sure if it’s relevant but, whilst I’m just a humble Mr, many foreign vets do call themselves Dr. I guess because in a lot of countries it’s classed as a post-grad qualification. Is it similar for Chiropractors?

I used to think it was wierd but now I don’t really care – I don’t think I’d want to be a “Dr” anyway for the reasons mentioned above, amongst others 🙂

gillian mckeith, or paraphrase Bad Science in the Guardian and to give her, her full title “gillian mckeith” is a good example. Called herself Dr, had no qualifications and made a lot of money from plenty of people. Shameful really.

Colleague of mine is Prof Dr Dr ……. BA(hons) MA MSc Ph.D DSc CGeog 😀

I insist my children call me doctor, although if they are referring to me in the third person, it must be ‘the doctor’.

It teaches them humility.

It’s all a little strange. When my parents moved to a village in Wiltshire, their next door neighbour wasn’t exactly welcoming.

He insisted on being addressed as Lieutenant-Colonel, despite having retired some 20 years previously. My dad never mentioned his own military service until he was accosted by said retired Lieutenant-Colonel on remembrance Sunday one year. He was most put out to discover that he was living next to a Brigadier with an MBE.

I think if I recall you can call yourself doctor if you fancy it – no criminal or legal implications.

However you can not claim to be a doctor with that title conferred by some body (medical, university etc) unless this happens to be true – of course unless you have harmed someone by doing so I doubt anything will be done about it.

There was a lovely episode a few years ago where (and I précis wildly) the dentists were thinking of calling themselves “Dr” and asked the medics if they had any objections only to be told somewhat sheepishly by the medics that the medics had no real right to the title anyway, they’d just kind of awarded it to themselves.

Of course in Italy as I seem to remember anyone with a degree can call themselves doctor, provided they are not using the degree to confer any other (higher?) title such as engineer.

‘Tis all a game.