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Dr. Title for Chiropractors in Australia!

Discussion in 'Australia' started by Canuk, Feb 19, 2012.

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  1. Canuk

    Canuk Active Member


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    Hi all,

    I have a niece in 4th Chiropractor college in Australia, and she tells me they have been granted the title of "Dr.". Any one to verify this? If so Why are we Podiatrists not entitled to Dr title as we are a main stream Allopathic not alternative med. group as GPs with the same years of training as Chiro. Maybe even greater training if you do the Pod Surg qualification. Thoughts????
     
  2. markjohconley

    markjohconley Well-Known Member

    Mr/Mrs Canuk, there's been a few threads on this and related topics, I'd search, mark
     
  3. LuckyLisfranc

    LuckyLisfranc Well-Known Member

    Canuk

    If you take the time to be abreast of your own registration board (PBA) policies and guidelines, you would notice that the "Dr" title has been virtually unregulated since 2010. Before then it was state/territory legislation that guided practitioners on this matter.

    Your relative will not be 'granted' the 'Dr' title. Unless, which I doubt, she is graduating with a doctoral level degree.

    What her profession is doing (which ours generally doesn't) is to very aggressively encourage all of its members to exploit the loophole in the legislation that enables any practitioner - from a dentist, to a dietitian, or a medical practititioner - to use the 'Dr' title - so long as it conforms with the AHPRA guidelines (ie with the concurrent use of their registered professional designation).

    Feel free to do the same if you like...

    LL
     
  4. Admin2

    Admin2 Administrator Staff Member

  5. Tim Foran

    Tim Foran Active Member

    Can we finally get over wanting to boost our own egos and let this issue go. As podiatrist in Australia I feel we are health professionals with a speciality in dealing with lower limb problems. We are not doctors like our American counterparts. If people are so hell bent on calling them-selves doctors enrol in a medical degree and than you can boost your ego finally (Watch the Kevin Spacey movie K-Pax where he meets 5 guys who all introduce themselves as doctors and Kevin Spacey says to them all how many doctors are there).
     
  6. antipodean

    antipodean Active Member

  7. Canuk

    Canuk Active Member

    Hi all,

    Thanks for all your replies. This thread was just an info gathering for a niece who was not sure, how legal it was. I have been out of the country for a few years and did not have my ear on the ground to know. But also just wondering how a group like Chiropractors would be granted this and not other medical groups. Thanks for the info.

    Hey Tim this thread was not for my ego at all. But just for your info I know what I do i Do oit well and do not need a title for this. No need to get your Budgies in a twist. Just a curious question that was it.

    Thanks Alan
     
  8. Tim Foran

    Tim Foran Active Member

    Hi Alan

    Definitely not directed at you but the people who feel they need to inflate their egos. We are good at what we do but some people seem to need a title to re-enforce it. Example Dr John Hewston
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WndWM71-jSQ
     
  9. owrang

    owrang Member

    Chirpractors have been using the Dr title in the Uk for some years now.
     
  10. SarahR

    SarahR Active Member

    We have similar issues in Canada, however desiring the use of the doctor title is NOT about elevating one's own ego. It is about credibility in the public eye as a profession.

    "I told the doctor that you said I need orthotics. He did his assessment and said I'm not over-pronating.". Has anterior cavus with heavy forefoot calluses and lack of pronation. Who is the doctor, her chiropractor of course. Armed with his gait scan pressure mat. But he's the doctor, I'm not, so who does she prefer to listen to? She did end up getting orthotics from me in the end, but would have gotten some nice library devices had the "doctor" recommended them. General practice docs who send us warts that are most consistent with corns, the classic negative fungal scraping taken from the top layer of the nail in distal subungual om, or conversely oral lamisil thrown at onychauxis or even staining from over-polishing, the "bunion" that smacks of "gout", the ID hmolle rediagnosed as tinea, but they are the doctor and I am just a Chiropodist, so the management plan is not accepted or takes more work and lengthy explanations or notes back to MD regarding my assessment. Don't get me started on the contest of wills with the "dressing nurse" who was mascerating the foot ulcer beyond belief. But I'm not a doctor and she wouldn't take my order, didn't think she was allowed to.

    Yes this is not the rule; majority of my patients go ahead with treatment and respect my professional opinion. A lot of this blind trust in "doctors" is generational and is fortunately becoming less common. No one deserves blind trust regardless of title. However I can't help but think it would make my life easier and shorten up a lot of appointments if I didn't have to convince certain people that my opinion is as medically valid as the previous "doctor" who looked at their feet in spite of the "lesser title" I hold.

    Not looking for an ego boost. I get enough of those from my grateful patients once their management has been a successful and we have achieved our goals together. Some even end up calling me doctor because I've earned it in their eyes :), I tell them they can call me Sarah instead. Don't worry, I have enough tricky cases to keep me humble too.
     
  11. markjohconley

    markjohconley Well-Known Member

    Please see threads Admin2 has linked, and who said chiropractors should be called 'doctors' as ridiculous as podiatrists being called 'doctors'!, that's Australian, NZ, and British trained podiatrists, mark
     
  12. Tim Foran

    Tim Foran Active Member

    I can only surmise from the replies that I seem to hold a minority view on the doctor title here in Australia. Oh well it takes different views to make a world. :empathy:The use of doctor I feel should be allocated to the medical practitioner such as a GP or surgeon. Dentist, chiropractors and tree surgeons should be known in my opinion by a different title as not to confuse the public. The public has perception of what a doctor does but when many different professions use the title it greys that area. As I have said this is my opinion and people are welcome to their opinion.
     
  13. LuckyLisfranc

    LuckyLisfranc Well-Known Member

    Tim

    I respect your views on this very polarising issue. In some respects I agree, but in others I would propose a more forward thinking and pragmatic approach.

    Leaving aside the argument that some podiatrists might find it any 'ego trip' to use the Dr title, there is a broader benefit to the increase of professionalism which comes with the use of any premominal such as Dr, Prof, Sir, Your Highness, etc, etc.

    In our country, medical practitioners, vets and dentists have historically used the title to separate themselves from other health providers. This was obviously based on tradition and a conscious move to mark a level of professionalism and status within their workplace (eg hospitals). A curious anomoly is the British throwback of "Mr" and "Ms/Mrs" that some surgeons take when they have finished their FRACS - but this is generally confined to the southern states these days and seems to be dying out.

    A suspect at least some of this tradition was based on the fact the most medical, dental and vet schools have only existed in 'sandstone' universities in the Group of Eight only up until recent years. Courses like podiatry have not been part of this 'elite' set of academic institutions up into UWA took on podiatry. Now look where that prrogram has gone in a very short space of time - from 4 year UG to a post grad DPM (negating the issue of the 'deservedness' of a Dr title).

    Any marketing professional will respond loudly and clearly when posed with the question of "what's in a name?" Everything.

    Brands, corporations, professions and almost every area of trade and commerce are influenced by the perceptions and subconscious impact of names and titles. They spend millions coming up with the correct arrangment of half a dozen letters because social research tells them this makes the difference between bumper sales and losing out to the competition. Analagously, health professions may not take such a consumerist view of names and titles, but they probably should if they wish to take a progressive view of professional development, consumer awareness and enhancing the perceptions of their 'expertise'.

    Whilst its easy to dismiss the issue as an 'ego w&nk', I feel a deeper analysis of the issue is warranted.

    You have to step back and wonder why the only country in the world which routinely has used the 'Dr' title in podiatry for more than 50years is light-years ahead in professional status, recognition and scope of practice than their overseas counterparts. Correlation or causation?

    LL
     
  14. caf002

    caf002 Active Member

    The comment from Tim is most heartening and hits the nail on the head. If you are confident in what you do, you have happy pateients with good outcomes, that is the key.

    Well done Tim. There maybe few of us left
     
  15. markjohconley

    markjohconley Well-Known Member

    I certainly don't know enough to comment on the podiatry profession in the USA.
    However, if in Australia, podiatrists completed a general medical degree followed by a podiatry post grad, or a PhD, then I would certainly support the use of the "Dr" title, Mark
     
  16. SarahR

    SarahR Active Member

    What is so magical and mystical about medical school? How is it more deserving of title than other similar professions with similar restricted acts? Often I wish I had resources to go myself, time and $$$ for tuition, just to see what the hype is about. I do not put those who went through medical school on a pedestal.

    In the US the DPM students used to sit along side the MD students in their overlapping classes, which improved the relationship. Exclusivity and elitism by most med schoola harms our ability to collaborate effectively with other professions.
     
  17. markjohconley

    markjohconley Well-Known Member

    Medical personnel have traditionally been called "Doctor", if you pass a sign that says "Dr Soandso" it should be a fully medically trained doctor so when you have an ache, anywhere in the body, then you can confidently (hopefully) make an appointment to see this "Doctor" about this pain somewhere in your body. Now there's a reason, mark
     
  18. Rob Kidd

    Rob Kidd Well-Known Member

    I have watched this debate so many times - and it seems to go nowhere. First some facts. In the Western World, apart from The Americas, medical doctors borrow the title "Doctor" - they are not really allowed it; this is known as a title of convenience. The word "Doctor" , means teacher, so I am assured by my classics collegeues. Thus, the Doctoral grads - PhD etc, use Doctor by right, not by convenience. In The UK, Australia, and, as far as I know, most other paerts of the western world apart from North America, an MD is a research degree, essentially a medical PhD. It is essentially in the US and Canada that an MD (and a DPM) is a "professional degree, not a research higher degree. I know so very many real Doc's (PhD's - including myself), who have really got over this debate - for God's sake, my name is Robert, not Dr Kidd! I was in hospital recently for some hand surgery - and not one of the medical staff called themselves Doctor. People, it is time to get real.
     
  19. Brandon Maggen

    Brandon Maggen Active Member

    There is absolutley no doubt that the title 'Dr' raises public perception, clearly from this thread, around the world.
    In South Africa, Chiropractors have used the title without exception.

    Patient's who are happy with podiatric care have already passed through the skilled hands of a podiatrist and are not who need convincing.

    In my view the training of pods in most Commonwealth countries causes confusion. We are mostly graduating with an honours degree (4 years) and so really have no right to the title.

    Similarly Chiro's and Dentists (even GP's) do not graduate with doctorate-level degree's but (probably though sheer numbers in the dental and chiro professions) have adopted the title anyway. And probably due to marketing and raising public perception.

    Unless podiatrists continue to a PhD, it is my opinion we should not take on the title.

    Ultimately, what (besides the obvious) is the primary difference between dentistry and podiatry anyway
     
  20. MR NAKE

    MR NAKE Active Member

    Cummon guys loosen the nuts in your heads!:bang:

    All we need to do is intensify/consolidate our Podiatric Medicine Curricullum/syllabus and then we all share the same skills/attributes hence we will all sing the same song as @Sarah, @Lucky suggests.

    Why do we have double stardards:deadhorse: A Doctor in USA, is no different to a Doctor in SA, (as long as the Podiatric Medicine & Surgery Curricullum/Syllabus is intense, comprehensive enough to equip the practioner with the skills well deserving for a Doctor).

    What good is a "Doctor" title to a Podiatrist with a course work oriented degree who knows very little for example:dizzy:). I can see eyes rolling,,:wacko:, simply because its all about whose syllabus is intense/well consolidated enough to be used as a yardstick (yet we all know which is best, food for thought).

    It just goes to show the lack of camarade in Podiatric Medicine & Surgery, and frankly speaking with all this bickering/self loathing which is so apparent among Podiatrists, i am surprised we have lasted this far:bash:
     
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