purplecthulhu

It depends on the context, and my mood at the time ...

I can't speak for myself, but my father doesn't care whether he is titled Mr., Dr. or Prof.

All of them are 'equally' valid since is simultaneously a surgeon (by qualification), a doctor (by trade -- he's not a practising surgeon anymore) and a university professor.

WhenIf I get my PhD, I'll probably feel irritated if I'm not titled Dr. since I've done the work.

I don't have a doctorate, but if I did I'd insist on 'Dr.' all the time, just to get out of the stupid Mrs/Ms dilemma.

I get annoyed when people address letters to my husband and I as 'Mr & Mrs T Underwood'. I hate being referred to purely as the wife of my husband ('Mr & Mrs Underwood' is fine, though - at least it doesn't strip me of my own first name). I haven't trained his side of the family out of this habit of addressing envelopes yet, though. *sigh*

Thoug I bet that if I had a doctorate, they'd get confused and start addressing letters to 'Mr & Dr T Underwood' which would be infinitely more annoying. MY doctorate, damnit! :-)

(hmm. If both my husband and I had doctorates, would the correct address be 'Drs Underwood', 'Dr & Dr Underwood', or 'Dr & Dr T Underwood'?)

I never felt comfortable being called 'Mr Jackson' - he was my dad, a very serious person with a proper job, whom important people would phone or write to.

These days, when filling in forms or in other official contexts I do always specify 'Dr'. In person, I usually don't correct people who call me 'Mr', except supercilious shop assistants (in which case the fact that I'm a customer should ideally be enough to guarantee the required lack of condescension and rudeness) - usually when talking to plumbers or decorators I say "please call me Nick".

I use Dr on my university email signature block when sending formal messages, eg "your paper is now ready for publication, please check the proofs and let us know if it's ok" or when writing a reference for one of my students (but in the former case it's mainly to stop American types calling me Professor).

My father is a Professor and my mother a Doctor, but I don't remember them being called that in any situation. Granted, I call them "mum" and "dad" and I am around them in informal situations, but I don't even remember it in formal letters etc.
I left Spain before all this mattered to me, but I've just emailed them enquiring whether it's their practice or somethign standard. I don't think people use their doctor title terribly often back home (I could be wrong), maybe it's a matter of culture and background.

Oh, also? I hate being called Mrs. Really.

Not replying to any one other poster specifically but WRT the MD vs DSc debate:-

The word "doctor" means to change something...? I know usually when used in such a fashion it's in a fairly negative light (doctoring the results for e.g.) but isn't thats why folks are referred to as "doctors"...because they change(d) stuff? In the case of MDs they change peoples humour/health and they "doctor" the practice of medicine in that they (hopefully) improve it. In the case of academics they have quite literally changed the way we think and view the universe through their research, inventions and/or discoveries.

Doctor just means "changer" in a sense. If any add weight to the word or consider some unworthy of it, is it not merely a sign of prejudices against or towards academia? (Do you ever catch yourself thinking "they gave you a doctorate for THAT?!?" when you hear the titles of some theses?)

Or am I mad?

I am vaguely planning to use Dr as my title when/if I get one, because I don't really like having my title reflect my marital status, and I just don't like the title Ms. I like the idea of a gender-neutral title, too.

Data points:

I don't have one.

Here at Fermilab, lots of people have one. It is rare for anyone here to address, or refer to, someone else as "Doctor" Soandso. (Exception: the tiny number of physicians here.)

My wife, a clinical psychologist, has one. She uses it all the time; at the office she answers the phone, "This is Doctor [Maidenname]." She deals not only with clients but also with attorneys, police chiefs, fire commissioners, etc., so maybe it enhances her status as a professional. Her staff refer to her as Doctor when speaking with outsiders, but use her first name when addressing her.

She does not insist that I address her as Doctor. Sometimes I do, anyway.

She will answer to "Doctor [Marriedname]" but she had built a professional reputation before I came along, and did not wish to switch names. She uses her married name socially.

We will be paying off a large student loan for years to come, for the privilege of calling her "Doctor."

If (big if, having seen the stress so many of my friends have endured) I ever got one I would want to use it for certain. I always take care to address people by their proper titles also and never presume anything - just seems sensible to me. And partly it's the line of work, in banking it's very important to be sure you've got your facts straight.

I've been "Ms" ever since I left high school as I just didn't feel like a "miss" anymore. Surprising the number of people who were funny about that back then, but these days most people seem to recognise it by pronunciation and it's been years since I had to spell it out M-S, not M-I-S-S. Even if I got married now I'd been unlikely to change unless my husband had a really cool surname (I don't consider the one I've got to be my real family name so I'm not terribly attached to it.) I shudder every time someone calls me "Mrs B*" as that's my mother.

I'm not nearly so irked by the idea of honorary titles as I am by the relatively simple and stupid degrees that are now being offered in various places which enabled not very learned or hard working people to 'earn' a doctorate.

BTW, why are surgeons endowed with the title "Mister" once they have qualified? Seems to me they should have something more special after all those years of work.