Can a holder of DBA use Dr. with in his name?

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Tarbuza, Dec 27, 2008.

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  1. PaulC

    PaulC Member

    While I use the Dr title strictly within academe and only associated with my academic endeavors, it should be noted that the word doctor is Latin for teacher and was applied to academe far longer than it has been to the practical or medical fields.

    To use it within the field associated with the doctorate is often important so others in the field know what your qualifications and credentials are.
     
  2. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    Doctor Nurse

    Your opinion is noted but according to an article in the American Journal of Nurse Practitioners, there are seven states that have legislation against using the title "doctor" if you are a nurse practitioner.

    "3. NPs must continue to strive
    to remove statutory restrictions that
    prohibit NPs with earned doctorates
    from being addressed as “doctor.”
    Many states have no requirement
    that doctorally-prepared NPs declare
    or clarify that they are NPs, and I
    also commend those states that have
    legislatively allowed qualified NPs
    to be addressed as “doctor” in the
    clinical setting as long as these doctorally-
    prepared NPs clarify that
    they are NPs. My concern centers
    on the eight states—Arkansas,
    Connecticut, Georgia, Maine,
    Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, and
    Oregon—that have statutory restrictions
    against doctorally-educated
    NPs being addressed appropriately
    as “Doctor NP.” Kudos to Iowa’s NPs
    and legislature, who removed this
    legislative restraint in 2008" (Pearson, 2009).

    Arizona, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia have legislation that allow nurse practitioners to be addressed as "doctor" if they hold doctoral degrees (Chism, 2010). For example, My name is Dr. Smith a nurse practitioner. They must clarify that they are a nurse practitioner. The remaining states don't have legislation yet.

    Reference:
    Chism, L. (2010). The doctor of nursing practice. A guidebook for role development and professional issues. Boston: Jones and Bartlett

    Pearson, L. (2009). The perason report. Retrieved from http://webnp.net/downloads/pearson_report09/ajnp_pearson09.pdf
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 6, 2009
  3. PsychPhD

    PsychPhD New Member

    This is what I already said

    My "opinion" is noted? I'm not stating an opinion -- but reporting data from the same Pearson Report you are citing.
    Some states do specifically forbid doctorally trained NPs to use the title doctor. I would venture a guess if you asked those state legislatures/licensing boards the rationale given would be to prevent what would be almost guaranteed confusion.

    Cue the lobbyists:
    "Must"? Or what?
    Suddenly NPs would no longer be allowed to practice? That boat pretty obviously has already sailed.

    In a general sense (if you haven't noticed), I am am strongly of the opinion that one should be able to reap the full "rights and privileges" of an earned degree.

    That said -- and after significant research into program standards and NP published materials -- I have yet to see any substantive evidence that demonstrates a need or added value of a doctorally-prepared NP.

    At current training levels, (unbeknownst to much of the general public) many NPs have fully independent practices -- no physician supervision is required at all.

    Yes, "Hi, I'm Dr. Jones, your nurse practitioner" sounds like a simple enough workaround to allow doctoral NPs to use the title. But given there are still are significant number of people who still do not know how a nurse practitioner actually differs from a physician -- you tell me how people will react when introduced to their "doctor nurse."

    The Peterson Report from which you quoted is essentially a manifesto advocating for full scope unrestricted practice for all NPs.

    It begs the two questions:
    1) If you wanted to perform that spectrum of services, why didn't you just go to medical school in the first place? (We already have a fully functional system for training and regulating physicians);
    2) If nursing is pushing members to pursue DNPs (with independent practices), who will actually be left to do NURSING in hospitals, clinics, state facilities, etc.? I am aware that nursing for many years was woefully underappreciated. Still, the core services they provided -- direct patient care, medication administration/monitoring, patient status evaluation, etc. -- require skill, training, and are even more important in today's more technologically sophisticated medicine. But, with the exodus of inpatient care nurses, there often is now one registered nurse overseeing a handful of CNAs -- who, on average, have a whopping 100 hours of training.

    Is the take home message that -- pre-independent practice -- nursing never needed more than a few weeks of training so CNAs are perfectly qualified to assume those duties? If so, how can the nurses leaving for advanced level practice assert they have a foundation to assume the broader, more complex, expanded interventions?

    Sorry, you can't have it both ways.
     
  4. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    In your original comment you did not reference the Pearson report! I apologize for not being able to read your mind.
     
  5. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    I don't want to be a medical doctor! I enjoy nursing. The Doctor of Nursing practice is a terminal degree for nurses. The nursing science has an entirely different philosophy than allopathic or osteopathic medicine. Our patients love and appreciate our style of caring for the human condition. You are comparing apples and oranges.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 6, 2009
  6. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    I am very content in my pursuit of a doctoral degree in nursing from a regionally accredited institution. There is presently a shortage of nurses and nurse educators filling the roles you mentioned.
    Who do you think is going to train these primary and advanced nurses? Hint: Those of us with doctoral degrees in nursing. Nurses are excellent teachers both to patients and students. The word doctor comes from the Latin "docere" meaning to teach. Ironically, the doctors that practice medicine have very little time to teach.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 6, 2009
  7. PsychPhD

    PsychPhD New Member

    Chip getting a little heavy on your shoulder?

    You saw in the Pearson Report the very information I had included in my original post ... what's this mindreading crap?

    Your own profession's seminal report said exactly what I did. So, you only agree with statments if they publicly cite your profession's publications?

    Could've fooled me ... because you have spent REAMS of posting trying to convince everyone that NP/DNPs are just as good as physicians.

    As well it should because it IS an entirely different profession!

    1) Oh, they do really? According to whom? Your own unabashedly unbiased research publications? When a data survey like the Pearson Report cannot just report the collected statistics without inserting all sorts of editorializing about what NPs must do to achieve pariety, your discipline has abandoned scientific research and critical thinking and replaced it with unabashed political lobbying;

    2) Please, do stand up and go tell the MD/DOs how SUBstandard their care is because your patients "love and appreciate your style of caring for the human condition."

    You ignored what I said before about there being a true and legitimate benefit for a caring presences for those residing as inpatients in hospitals or residents in extended care facilities. Nursing has abrogated providing "care for those humans' conditions" to woefully undertrained CNAs so they can bypass estabished medical training and hop, skip, and jump to claiming parity with physicians.

    Bottom line, I would venture to say that patients want their illness/injury to be cured and fixed -- something physicians often spend a decade learning how to do. Patients also would like to be treated as real, live human beings while hospitalized, something RNs have given over to CNAs.

    Still waiting ... how does a NP/DNP with a fraction of the clinical training of an MD/DO supercede their skill levels?
    Yes, nurses often were the ones to put a human face on the medical profession. However, this race to independent practice disrespects what nursing did best.
    As you now seem devoted to becoming "junior doctors" will DNPs hire RNs to humanize the diagnostic/treatment being provided?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 6, 2009
  8. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    I have never said that our beloved physicians are "sub-standard". Don't put words in my mouth! Our style of care is different that is all!

    As for the rest, DNP's have the right to be called doctor in many states including mine! If you don't like it, I suggest you lobby your legislators to put laws on the book in your state.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 6, 2009
  9. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    Can a holder of a DBA use Dr.?

    .....and a DNP in some states.
     
  10. PsychPhD

    PsychPhD New Member

    Pretty tall straw-(wo)man, you're building!

    "'Our beloved' physicians"?
    I realize online communication lacks body cues and tone, but that seems to be dripping with sarcasm.

    Yes, your style and quality of care is different. Love how you embrace the "style" aspect and ignore, for most people, the more important issue of quality.

    Except that nursing (a la The Pearson Report) has put a full court press in play to eviserate any meaningful distinction between NPs and MDs. As anyone can see by reviewing DNP curricula, there is more public policy/political advocacy course work than in any other health care degree program.

    The fact that you aren't even willing to tangentially concede that "nurse doctors" are going to add a level of confusion to health care providing is demonstrative that your personal ambition, not improved patient care, the true impetus of this effort.

    Indeed there is a shortage of primary care nurses. And, yes, there should be nurses with academically advanced credentials to teach new nurses. (Though I don't see anyone advocating there be a "Doctor of Plumbing Practice" being a requirement for teaching plumbing.)

    Once again, you ignore the fact that The Pearson Report is not about "nurse educators" but about advanced practice nurses. And, as of 2015, the intent is that the DNP will be the required credential for advance practice nurses.

    (See above) And neither will DNPs -- they will be too busy pretending to be physicians and worrying about being called "doctor". The traditional academic degreed nurses (i.e. PhD) will continue to be the core faculty of nursing schools.

    Your arguments are getting more and more tangential. I don't think anyone would deny that elementary/middle/high school instructors are true teachers. Yet, they aren't out there attempting to advocate for a creep of their credentials to require a doctorate just so they can have the Latin derivative "teacher title."

    Bottom line -- as a practicing psychologist in a medical setting, I have too often seen how patient care has suffered because NPs overstep the limits of their competence and how the abandonment of primary patient care of RNs to CNAs has impacted the mental (and physical) health of patients.

    Stop blowing the smoke of political/philosophical agendas and, for once, put some real empirical evidence on the table which demonstrates that DNPs needed and will benefit health care.
     
  11. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    Who is the one with a chip on their shoulder? Yes, in sincerity I call them beloved physicians. My work as a volunteer practitioner for the uninsured for the past 5 years along side with physicians in truth allows me to call them beloved. You are not in a position of authority to judge me and I resent the hostility you display towards me and my profession.

    You just don't get it! It is done! We have a doctoral degree program in place by over 80 regionally accredited institutions. As far as empirical evidence goes, since the DNP is newly established, it is my hope that the evidence of its benefit in healthcare will be in the forthcoming years.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 6, 2009
  12. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    2554 Views

    Wow! This thread has 2554 views. To get back on track, the theme of the thread is to ascertain whether or not a doctoral degree holder such as a DBA can use Dr. with his or her name.

    The conclusion seems to be Yes, No and depends.
     
  13. emichele20

    emichele20 New Member

    I agree if you earned it legally and are using the title correctly within your state then yes.
     
  14. PsychPhD

    PsychPhD New Member

    Chip and taking it too personally

    I have no hostility toward you or your profession.
    I am tired of your incessant plugging of this agenda to the exclusion of any contradictory evidence (and in any context which is even tangentially related!)

    What does concern me are professions which, for no reason other than self-aggrandizement, assert more competence/assume more responsibility than they have earned.

    When DNP graduates start finding out they are not going to be paid like doctors (but have as much debt) and negative outcomes start to pile up, patients will start paying more attention to who is delivering their healthcare. It's just sad that groups of people will take advantage of the public's ignorance and guillibility to forward their own agenda.

    Said it before -- we already have a medical profession and we (used to) have a nursing profession. We do not need nurses to become physicians. There are shortages of heathcare providers, but we need physicans to be physicians and nurses to BE nurses. Even we grant that NPs help fill in gaps in providing that NOT the same as saying their training entitles them to the same unlimited scope of practice as MDs/DOs.


    Wake up and smell the reality, Delta -- nothing is ever "done." Yes, there may be DNP programs in existence. But there is no guarantee they will always be there.

    "Hope the evidence of benefit will be in the coming years"??
    Damn, see above. Business schools already know you should understand the market before starting a venture if you want a reasonable chance of success. NPs seemed to have been doing just fine as they were -- where was the clamoring need for a further advanced degree? Don't see there being an expanded scope of practice. This is vanity credential creep, nothing more.

    And yes, this thread has gotten far off track.
    Instead of shilling for the DNP at every turn, perhaps staying focused on questions posed might help keep things on track.
     
  15. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    I didn't turn this thread into a fiasco and twist peoples words by saying "substandard". I believe that if a person earns an accredited degree they have all the "rights, honors and privileges pertaining to the degree".

    For some reason you have some agenda to want validated the degrees that regionally accredited institutions are already conferring. Your comments are not objective but personal.
    "Bottom line -- as a practicing psychologist in a medical setting, I have too often seen how patient care has suffered because NPs overstep the limits of their competence and how the abandonment of primary patient care of RNs to CNAs has impacted the mental (and physical) health of patients." end quote.

    As far as "waking up and smelling the reality", I have the money and motivation to obtain a DNP from an accredited institution. The reality is that there are mixed emotions to down right hostility for a pursuit of an accredited doctoral degree. If you don't like it. Tuff! and welcome to the United States of America!

    This thread isn't about the DNP but the ability for one to use the privileges, rights and honors associated with a doctoral degree!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2009
  16. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    Tuff

    Tuff
    –noun Geology.
    a fragmental rock consisting of the smaller kinds of volcanic detritus, as ash or cinder, usually more or less stratified.:)
     
  17. Paul S Rogers

    Paul S Rogers New Member

    PsychPhD, are you a license clinical psychologist and do you support prescriptive authority for license psychologist?
     
  18. PsychPhD

    PsychPhD New Member

    Just can't let it go, can you?

    I have never disagreed with that.
    But then you had to muddy the waters by inserting the propaganda of the Peterson Report and start beating the DNP drum again.

    No, you remained totally professional and respectful with comments like ...


    Love how you keep it objective:
    No Delta, I have carefully articulated my concerns and they have nothing to do with someone being able to use the title doctor if they have earned a doctoral degree. They have to do with professions needlessly inflating their "prestige" by creating doctoral degrees of dubious value.

    You want to earn a DNP (or any doctorate for that matter) and be called "doctor" ... go for it.

    But when I see professional standards eroding because people are enticed to earn puffed up credentials of dubious utility and quality that will impact the care of MY patients, yeah, I'm going to speak up.

    Oh, and funny how you are so quick to dismiss my clinical experiences as being "personal" but you feel it is legitimate to compare advance practice nurses to physicians with a statement like:

    Finally,
    Would have been nice if you left it there!
     
  19. PsychPhD

    PsychPhD New Member

    Not exactly on topic ...

    And I'm curious why you are bringing it up ...

    But, yes, I do support the current APA proposal for prescriptive authority for psychologists.

    If you really want a wake-up call about comparing apples and oranges, review the curriculum and requirements for the qualifying post-doctoral Master's degree for a psychologist to earn the right to prescribe only psychotropic (mental health) medications and the entry-level Master's curriculum for a nurse practitioner who, in most states, has no limits on prescriptive authority.

    Then you'll start to appreciate why this whole DNP thing more than concerns me.
     
  20. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    Derailed

    If this thread isn't derailed??? Don't blame it on me! have a good one!
     

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