JRSM > Volume 99, Number 4 > Pp. 197-199

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Do surgeons wish to become doctors?

N Ibery P M Patel   P J Robb

Correspondence to: N Ibery
E-mail: nibery{at}gmail.com

Objectives To gauge opinion among otolaryngologists about their wish to retain the title Mr, Miss, Ms or Mrs or to adopt the title of doctor.

Design An e-mail questionnaire sent to all members of ENT-UK (The British Association of Otolaryngologists—Head and Neck Surgeons), who had registered an e-mail address with the ENT-UK secretariat.

Setting The specialty group of otolaryngologists in the UK.

Participants 723 recipients of e-mails, who were members or fellows of a surgical Royal College and, by convention in the UK, entitled to adopt the title Mr, Miss, Ms or Mrs.

Results 304 recipients of the e-mail questionnaire responded. 39% were not aware of any proposals to change the convention, addressing surgeons as `doctor' in the future. Overall, 61.8% were in favour of retaining the current convention and retaining the title Mr or a female equivalent. Applying the null hypothesis that most surgeons would not like to change a title, the ² test produced a highly significant P value of 0.0002. Of female respondents, however, only 43% supported retention of the current convention. Using Fisher's exact test to compare female and male respondents, the two-sided P value was highly significant at 0.006, with female respondents favouring the title of doctor.

Conclusions A large proportion of ENT surgeons in the UK responded to the questionnaire. They were unaware of proposals to change the current convention of address for surgeons. A significant number of those responding were in favour of retaining the current convention. The small proportion of female respondents indicated a preference for being addressed as `doctor'.

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