Professional doctorates

Are professional doctorates becoming more common these days as alternatives to PhD study? I don't recall seeing many outside of the medical fields in the past but lately I see more and more doctorates in other fields.

For example, someone on these forums mentioned a school offering a Doctorate of Physical therapy. Many schools now offer DBA's and Doctorates of Management. There is even a Doctorate of Military Studies. I'm sure if I dug, I could find a few more.

Why so many different doctorates these days?

 

May have answer ...

Looks like they've been around longer than I thought ...

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-research-doctorate.html

I guess it still leaves me with a question. Looking at the list, why would someone earn a Doctorate of Chemistry (D.Chem.) instead of a PhD in Chemistry for example? Does it simply boil down to the fact that a PhD usually requires a lot of original research and contribution but most of the ones listed do not?

 

IMO, I think that quite a bit of it has to do with academic creep in society. The Doctor of Physical Therapy is a good example of this. It seems like something that physical therapists have created to put themselves academically/professionally on par with the M.D.s and D.O.s instead of functioning with "simply" a masters degree.

 

There is now something called the "Doctor of Audiology". The D. Pharm. replaced the old Bachelor of Pharmacy.

I suppose the law schools started this lamentable trend in the 1960s when they gradually replaced the venerable LL.B. with the J.D.

I suspect that it has little to do with lawyers or pharmacists but a lot to do with professors of law or pharmacy who wanted a "doctorate" since their arts and sciences colleagues all had Ph.D. degrees.

 

I don't know when it started but the PsyD has become a popular alternative to a PhD in Psychology and Schools of Professional Psychology have popped up all over the place. Here's the one that I know the best, the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.
http://www.mspp.edu
Jack
(please be aware that MSPP is not a DL school)

 

If you're interested in the history of psychology doctorates in the US, you might google search "Boulder Conference" and "Vail Conference." I forget, however, which conference developed the PsyD and which developed the PhD in Psychology.

 

Because it is cool to be called doctor. Here ist a new one: Plant Doctor.

The one was started at UF recently.

http://www.dpm.ifas.ufl.edu/index.html

 

It was the Vail conference in 1973 that started the Psy.D. due to growing dissatisfaction with Ph.D. programs and what was felt by many as an overemphasis on research. I believe that the thinking of proponents of the Psy.D. was that applied psychology should be more like medicine, dentistry, optometry etc.

 

My alma mater, Concordia University in Mequon Wisconsin offers a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree in residence and via DL I believe. The growth in this degree is due to a push by the physical therapy profession to establish themselves as an independent doctoral level profession. In Wisconsin, physical therapists with the doctorate can practice independently and not under the supervision of physicians. Consequently, in Wisconsin they are able to offer services to the public directly like any other autonimous professional. This trend towards autonimous practice is likely to to be repeated in other states- hence the trend towards doctoral level education.

 

I think it's a matter of degree creep. My mother's two brothers came of age when an associate's was good enough to become a CPA, which now generally requires the master's. The school principals I knew and admired as a child probably had (or at least could have gotten their jobs with) "just a bachelor's," whereas whoever now occupies the positions as principal of Brooklyn Elementary School, Cement City Elementary School, Columbia Junior High School, Columbia Central High School, and Fruita Monument High School probably are Doctors of Education. My mother tells me that some of my elementary school teachers (from the 1960s) did not have bachelor's degrees but one of my cousins who is an elementary teacher holds an MEd in Curriculum and Instruction from Bowling Green State University. And so it goes. I guess as the average level of education in society increases, the people demand higher levels of education from their service providers.

 

A doctoral degree by nature should be research-oriented with minimal (if any) coursework. It should develop new ideas and push the limits of human knowledge. There are so many doctoral programs these days that focus so heavily on coursework that they lose sight of the purpose of a doctorate: research.

You know what a three to five-year part-time program with lots of coursework credits, examinations and a 50,000 word thesis is called? A master's.

It does not matter what the doctorate is called: Ph.D., D.B.A., Eng.D., Psy.D., etc., as long as it holds to the philosophy of research, independent thought, academic supervision and new knowledge.

There are lots of DL doctoral programs out there that could hardly even be regarded as master's-level programs.

 

Huh?

 

Dunno. I'd guess that in some cases it's just traditional nomenclature, and in other cases a school might want to distinguish two rather different doctoral programs by giving them different names. (As to how the programs differ, you'd probably have to look at the specifics of the programs.)

Yeah, I think that's right.

I agree that the academic profession is probably the engine of this.

But you also see a lot of it coming from private practitioners in the helping/healing professions who use the doctoral title in their advertising. You can't underestimate the "white coat" -- "Doctor" effect on laymen.

I think that I disagree with that. Historically doctorates have been university teaching credentials. That's how the degree originated in medieval times. It was only in 19'th century Germany that the idea arose that university teaching credentials should be 'Ph.D.s' awarded on the basis of original research dissertations. Today that model is kind of imperializing doctorates in general, but there's no real reason why it has to.

Here's something on the history of doctorates:

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20646

And I'll add that the late great physicist Richard Feynmann describes in those rather chatty books of his how he used to take graduate classes at Cal Tech where he taught. He sometimes found that his research required expertise that he simply didn't have, typically in some arcane aspect of higher mathematics. So he'd slip into a graduate math class, sit down in the back and pull out his notebook. The presence of the famous Nobel Prize winner taking the class alongside them never failed to electrify the other students.

 

DR/PhD

I was told that a PhD is a degree designed if one who wishes to engage in teaching as a profession,while a Doctorate is a degree designed of private employment...Not sure if there are any truth to this.

 

Re: Re: Professional doctorates

I think this Doctor of Plant Medicine(DPM) should have been title something else. It is too confusing with Doctor of Podiatric Medicine(DPM). I am surprised that the podiatrists did not complain about it.

Maybe they can make a professional doctorate and call it an MD....Management Doctor. Do you think the AMA would have a problem with that?

 

Re: DR/PhD

Ignoring the fact that a PhD is a doctorate, it is not a global distinction. It is common for those who acquire PhDs in Science and Engineering diciplines to have (non teaching) positions at research labs. Non-PhD doctoral programs in science and engineering are also comparatively rare.

 

Re: Re: Re: Professional doctorates

How about a Doctor of Plant Health?

 

Re: Re: Re: Professional doctorates

Of course, the American Management Association would have no problem with calling the Doctor of Management the MD.

 

pet peeve

I wish we'd stuck with the LL.B. as the first professional degree title in law. It has a LONG history and is reasonably well understood throughout the common law world.

BUT since the law schools decided to replace the LL.B. title with the hitherto virtually unknown J.D., did they HAVE to make the title LATIN?

I mean, c'mon! Doctor of Medicine. Doctor of Pharmacy, Doctor of Dental Surgery, these all clearly state to the most casual observer what they are and what they mean.

COMES NOW "Juris Doctor". Even I don't know exactly what this stupid phrase means and I AM one.

U Wisconsin actually puts "Doctor of Law" on its law school diplomas and then spoils the effect by putting "Juris Doctor" underneath that in italics. Just to obfuscate and declarify, I guess.