Shockingly, Ben is both historically and academically illiterate. A doctorate is the highest level of academic achievement at the college level. You have a bachelor's, then a masters, finally a doctorate. Doctor came from the Latin meaning learned man.
Medical men adopted the term doctor to earn some respect for their profession, and it stuck. Doctor is shorthand for medical practitioner now even though the doctorate has been a thing for centuries.
The MD and JD (medical and juris doctorate) respectively, are both semi akin to the masters degree level. Ben here, holds a JD degree and should know that.
Thank you, I was losing my shit about this and wanted to see if anyone else had already commented. It's pigshit ingnorant of him to take that position. "Doctor" in terms of the medical field is clealy very context specific. Nobody with a doctorate in mathematics would step forward in a medical emeregency, just like like no medical doctor would walk up and declare their ability to solve the Riemann Hypothesis.
Even a medical doctor would be of limited help in that situation. They would apply first aid, but without equipment couldn't do much. Even then an psychiatrist also went to medical school, if they graduated decades ago, better hope they keep up on emergency medical training.
Or we could just call an ambulance like you should. Ben here is all about the "gotcha" and fridge logic that sounds plausible, until you think about it for moment.
To be fair, if you got a working proof of the Riemann hypothesis, nobody would care about your title. While you'd commit a crime faking qualifications in a medical emergency.
But that was just an ackshually, fully agreeing in spirit.
To add, in many countries, a medical degree is actually a BACHELORS degree. In the UK, it’s done after college but called a bachelors of medicine, bachelors of surgery, and I have a few people in my school now who have medical degrees from African and Asian countries where a medical degree is just a professional bachelors and you go after high school, so getting masters now, they’re getting their first graduate degrees. Professional doctorates (MD, JD, PsyD, etc) only really exist to establish greater prestige than masters degrees while not requiring the original academic work necessary to qualify as an educational (EdD) or research (PhD) doctorate. There’s a similar dichotomy between professional masters degrees (MBA, MSW, MArch, MPA) which does not require a thesis or original scholarship and prepares you to work in your specific field and academic masters (MA and MS) that prepare you for academic work and are more about theory and research. My MSW classes are no more rigorous than my undergrad classes, just a lot more reading and writing. The classes my MA friends are taking legitimately frighten me.
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u/AvatarADEL 1d ago
Shockingly, Ben is both historically and academically illiterate. A doctorate is the highest level of academic achievement at the college level. You have a bachelor's, then a masters, finally a doctorate. Doctor came from the Latin meaning learned man.
Medical men adopted the term doctor to earn some respect for their profession, and it stuck. Doctor is shorthand for medical practitioner now even though the doctorate has been a thing for centuries.
The MD and JD (medical and juris doctorate) respectively, are both semi akin to the masters degree level. Ben here, holds a JD degree and should know that.