No, those two things do not necessarily mean the same.

"I'm Dr Smith" means that the person in question received a doctorate in any discipline- so it could be an historian, a theologian, a computer scientist, an engineer, or a physician. So the title "Dr" does not exclusively denote a medical practitioner.

PhD is a doctor in philology- i.e. generally arts & humanities. In engineering you would receive a DEng, While the doctor of medicine seems to be MD (although I've rarely heard anyone referred to as an MD in the UK). A "PhD in medicine" would, therefore be highly unusual & would in all likelihood not actually be a medical qualification.

It depends on the country. See Wikipedia, preferably in more than one language, for information about medical degrees vs. research degrees in medicine, in various countries. Also see the forum archive (Suche in allen Foren) for discussions on how to translate medical degrees and titles, or when it's better to leave them in the original and add an explanation as necessary.

In the US, if you are a fully qualified doctor who can treat patients, you are an MD, but normally not a PhD. The PhD degree in medicine is a more advanced degree that mainly involves additional years of research, not clinical training or practice. Some doctors, mostly professors at medical schools, are MD/PhD's, meaning that they hold both full degrees; but most doctors are MDs and most laboratory researchers are PhDs. (So are, of course, most university teachers in any field, as Richard points out.)

Either degree entitles you to use the title 'Dr.'; someone called 'Dr. Smith' could be either.

In context where the complete information matters to you, such as journal articles, you would list your academic qualifications after your name.

GianFranco Smith, MD
GianFranco Smith, PhD
GianFranco Smith, MD, PhD

When you abbreviate the degree after the name, you don't write 'Dr.' or any other title before the name.

PhD is a doctor in philology- i.e. generally arts & humanities

and sciences (and thus research oriented medicine)! I also thought that PhD stood for doctor of philosophy (although there might be a couple of philologists on LEO).

Richtig, Beel, das steht für "philosophical doctor".

Und als solcher ist er auch in Wissenschaften wie Mathematik beheimatet, nicht nur in arts und humanities.

thanks everyone.

(#1): So the title "Dr" does not exclusively denote a medical practitioner.
I wasn't sure about this, thanks. But then, as others have pointed out, you couldn't say "I'm Dr. Smith" when you hold a PhD in IT science? (i.e. "ein Doktor der Informatik")

(#2): ...you are an MD, but normally not a PhD.
but if I "have a PhD in medicine", I am definitely an MD. Correct?

you couldn't say "I'm Dr. Smith" when you hold a PhD in IT

Doch, wer hat denn was anderes gesagt?

but if I "have a PhD in medicine", I am definitely an MD

Nein, wenn man ein PhD ist man kein MD (zumindest nicht automatisch, man kann natürlich beide Abschlüsse machen). Auch in Deutschland können Mediziner einen Dr. rer. nat. statt des (oder zusätzlich zum) Dr. med. machen.

>you couldn't say "I'm Dr. Smith"

you can say that if you hold a doctoral degree in any field of research.

>>but if I "have a PhD in medicine", I am definitely an MD. Correct?

No. An MD is what you get after your studies of medicine. A PhD is what you get when you finish you dissertation. In some cases, people that have not previously studied medicine do a PhD in medicine, so not every PhD in medicine also holds an MD.

you couldn't say "I'm Dr. Smith" when you hold a PhD in IT science?
Certainly you can. You can have a Ph.D. in any of a vast range of subjects, including computer science, engineering, natural sciences, social sciences, arts, etc.

Supplementary information: You do not necessarily need an M.D. to practice medicine in the US. Some physicians have a D.O. instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.O.

PhD in medicine sounds a bit odd, however, a few medical schools offer an MD/PhD degree where both scientific principles and medicine is taught. Anyway, an MD/PhD would also be addressed as "Dr Smith".

@hm-us:
Darf ich auch noch was fragen? Was mache ich mit einem deutschen Dr. und einem amerikanischen MBA?

Meine deutsche Visitenkarte lautet
Dr. Vorname Nachname, MBA (Universität)

Wenn ich deine Aussage

When you abbreviate the degree after the name, you don't write 'Dr.' or any other title before the name.

richtig verstehe, müsste ich auf die englische Version
Vorname Nachname, JD (Universität Deutschland), MBA (Universität USA)

schreiben?

Vielen Dank!

@Beel

Erm- oops? I blame typing a longish post on my phone...

@La-potranca,

Die Aussage bezieht sich auf den Doktortitel- d.h. man schreibt nicht "Dr potranca PhD", sondern entweder "Dr potranca" oder "potranca PhD". Der Doktor wird allerdings im Gegensatz zu niedrigeren akademischen Titeln oftmals dem Namen vorangestellt, so dass man sich zwar Dr potranca nennen würde, nicht aber Baccalaureus potranca oder Magister/Magistra potranca (außer natürlich in Österreich).

Bei dem von Dir angesprochenen Fall (detuscher Doktor & am. MBA) würde ich Dr potranca MBA verwenden.

(Außerdem ist bei der Verwendung von JD Vorsicht geboten- das scheint vor allem in den US ein Titel zu sein der nach dem Jurastudium verliehen wird, also nicht wirklich vergleichbar mit einem "richtigen" Doktor- auch wenn es "Juris Doctor" bedeutet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Doctor Der "richtige" Doktor ist dann eher der LLD oder ein PhD in Law).

vielen lieben Dank, Richard!

Als ich letztes Jahr auf einer Kognitionspsychologie-Konferenz in den USA war, wurden wir bei der Immigration gefragt "so you guys are all doctors?". Nach einigen Missverständnissen haben wir erkannt, dass die "richtige" Antwort eher "no, I am a PhD/a scientist" ist, da die Frage darauf abzielte, ob wir Therapeuten sind. Und das war keiner von uns. Ich nenne mich daher aufgrund meines Fachgebiets und der Verwechslungsgefahr auf Englisch definitiv nicht mehr "Doctor", sofern es mir gerade nicht total egal ist, wofür mich mein Gegenüber hält.

>(Außerdem ist bei der Verwendung von JD Vorsicht geboten- das scheint vor allem in den US ein Titel zu sein der nach dem Jurastudium verliehen wird, also nicht wirklich vergleichbar mit einem "richtigen" Doktor- auch wenn es "Juris Doctor" bedeutet.


Das ist ja beim MD benauso, das ist auch kein richtiger Doktor, sondern nur ein Diplom-Mediziner.

Frank,

Das mag schon sein, war aber nicht das worauf ich abziehlte- es ging weniger darum den JD bzw. MD geringzuschätzen, sonderen eher darum, potranca darauf hinzuweisen, dass es evtl. nicht so ideal ist den deutschen Dr als JD wiedergeben zu wollen - das ganze erinnert mich auch an den italienischen Dottore...

Interessant ist vielleicht auch, dass zumindest in England die "consultants" (d.h. die Ärzte mit richtigem Doktortitel) meistens nur mit "Mr" angesprochen werden- tiefstapeln als gehobene Form des Snobismus... ;)

Re #13: Als Naturwissenschaftler würde ich auch nie "I am a doctor" sagen (was ich mit "Ich bin Arzt" übersetzen würde*), mir die Anrede "Dr. Mattes" aber sehr wohl gefallen lassen und nicht für missverständlich halten. Bekanntes Beispiel: Dr. King (Martin Luther King).

*Siehe "Pille" McCoy: I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.

Wichtig ist noch mal zu erwähnen, dass Absolventen britischer Medizinstudiengänge sich "automatisch" Dr. xxx nennen dürfen (ebenso wie in Österreich), d.h. ohne eine Doktorarbeit zu verfassen.
In Deutschland hingegen ein Arzt ersteinmal "nur" Herr/Frau XXX. Der Doktortitel wird durch die Anfertigung der Doktorarbeit erlangt.

#4 ..."philosophical doctor"...

That sounds funny! You were right to put it in inverted commas IMO :-)

@15: Only consultant surgeons are addressed as "Mr". Consultants in other specialities in the UK are also addressed as "Dr". (And they don't necessarily, in fact rarely, have a doctorate, it just means they have completed their specialist training.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consultant_%28me...

This leads to the peculiarity that junior doctors, who have not yet qualified in a particular speciality, are addressed as "Dr", but if they go on to specialise in surgery, they revert to "Mr". Presumably this is a historical artefact from the time when surgery and medicine were regarded as completely separate professions.

Most medical practitioners in the UK have no doctoral degree, but they still call themselves Dr Smith.

In the UK at least, an MD is a seriously professorial degree, and a young researcher in medicine would indeed get a PhD, if he took a doctorate at all.

Or she.

As I recall, there is some different research degree awarded in the UK, which might mention the word 'medicine'; but my memory is vague, you would have to sift through some archive threads to find it.

>>"so you guys are all doctors?"

Yes, that question is about your job, not about your academic qualification. You wouldn't say 'I'm a doctor' if you mean 'I have a doctorate,' only if you mean 'Ich bin Arzt.'

But if you're ever unsure, you can just ask 'Do you mean a physician / a medical doctor?' Then, if the answer is yes, you can just say no, or say that you're a researcher or a scientist.

Like Mattes, I don't think you should avoid putting 'Dr.' on your nametag if that's the title you use; you have every right to it. People with doctorates who work at a university do normally use 'Dr.,' but in industry it's more an individual choice. If you don't use it at home, you don't have to use it in the US unless you would like to.

>>müsste ich auf die englische Version
Vorname Nachname, JD (Universität Deutschland), MBA (Universität USA)
schreiben?

If the JD is just a normal law degree, yes; lawyers aren't called 'Dr.' in English.

If the JD is a real doctorate, that is, several years of additional academic research after a first degree, then as Richard says.

@hm -- us,

I think the question was more about how to "convert" the German Dr into English (#10: "Was mache ich mit einem deutschen Dr. und einem amerikanischen MBA?"), rather than the reverse of how to use the JD in Germany.

Although I quite agree, that if you hold a JD as a professional degree from, say, and American University, that should go behind the name (e.g. Richard, JD, MBA).

When transferring titles into German, one needs to be careful in any event, since I think it is necessary to obtain a "Trageerlaubnis" if the doctorate was not awarded by a German university- normally not a problem, but one doeas need to have the foreign title recognised before being allowed to call oneself Dr in Germany...

It just wasn't clear to me that the German JD wasn't also more like a professional degree than like a research doctorate, I suppose mainly because I wouldn't expect anyone with a research doctorate to want or need an MBA. To me, getting a sense of whether the person works in business or academia is more important on a business card, because a non-physician might not use Dr. in any case outside a university context.

It's not so much a case of it being a "German JD"- I think that's where the difference lies. If I understand it correctly, JD is the qualification one obtains after studying law in the US.

In Germany you have the 1. & 2. Staatsexamen- after passing the second of these "state exams", you are entitled to practice. Many German lawyers also decide to do a doctoral thesis, which is essentially a research doctorate.

The other point to bear in mind is that Germans are quite keen on titles, so the assertion that "...a non-physician might not use Dr. in any case outside a university context." does not really hold true in Germany (particularly in law, where it is almost impossible these days to get a job in Germany without being a Dr).

Since potranca said

>>JD (Universität Deutschland)

I assumed it must be a German JD, not a US one.

>>Many German lawyers also decide to do a doctoral thesis, which is essentially a research doctorate.

Aha. That seems to be the practical point of difference; it's a standard law degree with a thesis, as opposed to one without? I'm still not sure we would call that quite a research doctorate, unless the thesis took three or four years and the person was planning to teach law and write other academic papers and so on. It sounds to me more like a slightly longer professional degree, which also makes more sense if you say that a lot of lawyers do it mainly to be more competitive in the job market. But it may be something sort of in between for which there just isn't an exact equivalent.

I understand that titles are important to German speakers in some fields, but my impression was that potranca was asking about precisely this cultural difference, when to use this particular German title on an English business card. To me the answer to that question could depend partly on whether she's working (or hoping to work) in business (no) or in academia (yes). But even in business, 'Dr.' might be impressive, I don't know, it might depend on the business.

And, with a non-German PhD you may get permission to use the letters after your name in Germany, but you won't necessarily be entitled to use "Dr."

JD (Universität Deutschland)

I suspect that was just an example- i.e. assuming that the German doctorate would translate into a JD & you include the name of the University (e.g. Richard JD (Marburg) MBA (NY)).

My point was precisely that this would not work, as the JD is a different degree.


As for the German doctorate in law- it's not quite the case that it's a standard law degree with a thesis. The thesis is actually separate from the law degree.

The difficulty with comparing legal degrees is that they are structured somewhat differently. In Germany the law degree does not actually lead to a Bachelor or Masters, but rather to the "Staatsexamen". The "Erstes Staatsexamen" does, in some states, entitle you to call yourself a "Diplomjurist", so in practice it is probably the closest equivalent to a Bachelors' degree (although no doubt some Germans will soon point out that the German "Diplom" is actually closer to an MA... however, an LLM tends to be an entirely different kettle of fish, so let's not even go down that route...).

Following this first state exam, there is a 2 year "Referendariat", during which the student learns about the practical aspect of things, completing different stages with different departments, such as the state prosecution service, a judge, a law firm, etc. At the end of this training period there is a second exam, the "Zweites Staatsexamen", successful completion of which entitles you to practice.

In addition to this, many law students decide to do a doctorate in law as well, which can take several years, depending on how broad a field the student chooses & how quickly they work. That said, this is not actually part of the law degree as such, but rather it is necessary to be accepted by a supervisor & carry out the doctoral research & write a thesis.

Now, there are some sceptics (such as Arts & Humanities students ...) who claim that the doctor in law is not a "proper" doctor, but formally it is. There is no differentiation between someone who wants to go into academia and someone who wishes to go into practice (apart from the undeniable fact that some doctoral theses are rather better than others, but that has nothing to do with the system as such).

@La-potranca: I'm not an expert, but my impression is that "Dr." in AE is just something you can prefix to the name of someone who holds any kind of doctoral degree (though it's not used very often), whereas in German "Dr." is a specific title, analogous to "PhD" in AE.

So for your English business card, how about "First Last, Dr. (Universität Deutschland), MBA (University U.S.)", analogous to how you'd put "PhD" behind your name? It's a little unconventional, but perhaps it's the easiest and clearest solution for someone with degrees from different countries.

(*sigh*, it's me, who started the topic). I just realized that I've obvisouly opened a can of worms... *sigh* again

Nonetheless thanks everyone who responded, I learnt alot!

Now I'll leave the thread to those who still want to share their views/opinions. It's interesting to watch, although very OT.

This thread surely has the potential to be "never ending", as Phd, Dr., MD, JD etc. obviously have different meanings depending on country but also(!) on universities. So... have fun. My doubts aren't gone, but I'm much more clearer about the usage of "Dr." vs. "PhD in medicine" (in English) than before.