This weekend, I had the chance to catch up with a college friend I haven’t spoken to in months. Let’s call her Alice.
Alice is in her final year of an anesthesiology residency. She has been out of medical school two years longer than my husband. (Anesthesia residents do a prelim year of residency in an internal medicine program, then three years of anesthesia residency.) (And she will only have a one-year fellowship… so basically I am already jealous of her husband.)
During our conversation, Alice brought up one of the tricky little things that come with being a doctor: People forgetting her title.
Here’s the situation.
Alice was invited to the wedding of a childhood friend – a guy she’s known forEVER. She’s known her friend’s fiancée for several years as well, although they don’t get together very often. But the couple definitely knows that Alice is an anesthesia resident.
Anyway, when Alice received the formal wedding invitation in the mail, she noticed that it was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. John Smith.
Now, I don’t want to give you the idea that Alice was in a rage about this or anything… I think she was a little irked, but that was all.
But I probably would have been irked, too! I mean, she went through four years of medical school and is 75% done with her residency. She’s certainly earned the M.D. after her name… So I think she’s earned the right to be called Dr. Smith.
Alice’s husband thought it was just plain rude. He actually thinks that it was the bride’s little passive aggressive way of “sticking it to” Alice. (I don’t know the back story on that – sounds juicy!) But my guess is that the bride and groom had no idea they were offending Alice. I bet the mistake was due to one of three things:
- They didn’t know if she goes by “Dr. Smith” yet, since she’s still in training
- They were unaware of the proper protocol of addressing an invitation when the woman is the one with the title
- They didn’t even think about titles when addressing their invitations
Since my father is a physician, I’ve always been conscious of titles. Otherwise, I’m not sure I would even think twice about it. (Is this something that YOU think of/thought of when addressing letters or invitations?) The other thing is, I don’t know if it’s common knowledge that once you’ve graduated medical school, you are a doctor. Well, you are. Even if you can’t practice, you’re officially Dr. Soandso.
Anyway, the proper protocol is to always include a title on a formal invitation. According to Emily Post, Alice’s friends should have addressed the invitation as follows:
– Dr. Alice Smith and Mr. John Smith
– Dr. Alice and Mr. John Smith
Or, if Alice had kept her maiden name:
– Dr. Alice Jones and Mr. John Smith
Or, if Alice and her husband were both physicians:
– The Doctors Smith
– Drs. John and Alice Smith
– Dr. Alice Smith and Dr. John Smith
– Dr. Alice Jones and Dr. John Smith
As I mentioned, Alice’s husband was more miffed than Alice was about the lack of title. (He’s awfully proud of his wife and her accomplishments.) So on the response card, he wrote in “Dr. Alice Smith and Mr. John Smith” in the space provided before “will be attending.”
I got a good giggle out of that. Passive aggressiveness FTW!
Titles are fairly tricky – I know I’ll be doing my research to try not to step on anybody’s toes while I’m getting mine done! I think if it’s unintentional, then it’s not such a big deal – but if it WAS intentional.. well, that kind of stinks.
I would have had no idea how to address that, considering the Dr. is the female. On the other hand, I used to dream of having a Ph.D. before I got married so we could be “Dr. and Mr.” because I’m such a show-off. Luckily, I realized the time and money it would take weren’t worth the title (it would have been in a liberal arts field… hello Dr. Poor-and-Starving!). I’m glad “Alice’s” husband corrected the (hopefully well-meaning?) couple on the RSVP though!
I thought you had to be “all done” in order to use a title! News to me! You know, you don’t have a BA until your all done, so it makes sense. I’ll have to do better!
Well, he already has an M.D. – he just doesn’t have a license to practice yet.
I actually wasn’t aware that you got the title once you graduated medical school. Thanks for the tip!
I think most people ignore titles, and they really shouldn’t. The bride should have done her research and at least asked if she wasn’t sure how to address the invite. It’s the one time you really should use proper titles in a wedding invite!
I sure hope it was accidental – otherwise, that’s just plain rude! To answer your question, yes, I was very careful with proper titles when adddressing our wedding invitations. We had a number of tricky situations (married doctors, couples living together but unmarried, couples married where wife did not change name or hyphenated, elected officials, etc.) so I wanted to get it right. I’m a geek, but I kind of enjoyed looking up the “rules” in addressing invites.
I understand why Alice and her husband might have been a littler irked! Although, I have to admit that if I was address invitations, I would not have been exactly sure of the protocol either. I would have checked though, only because I worry WAY too much about hurting other people’s feelings or making others upset. I love how Alice’s husband wrote the correct way on the RSVP card. A little lesson never hurt anyone 😉
I like how Mr. Smith handled the invite. I understand his fustration. I too become very irritated when people call my husband Mr. even though most of the time they do not know he is a doctor. However, I do correct people alot more than my husband. But what is most irritating to me is to hear nurses in the hospital call my husband by his first name. Not all nurses do it; but mostly the cockey nurses address him that way. I used to work in healthcare before I met my husband and I never addressed a Dr. using his/her first name. It is just tasteless on a nurses part or anyone for that matter.
Ooooh! I agree – that’s not cool! My dad has been working with a few of the same nurses for decades… and is friends with some of them outside of work… But at the office and in the hospital they refer to him as “Dr.”
I think it would be totally unprofessional not to!
That’s really interesting! I feel like my husband gets so much respect and oooohs and aaaahs that sometimes it’s okay when people “forget” his title – which naturally happens once in a while when outside of the hospital setting. The husband sounds like a good guy to be so supportive and determined to have his wife recognized.
Yeah I would have put Mr. and Mrs. in that case as well (accidentally apparently). I have a friend or two in their residency and I had no idea theirs should say Dr. I am sure that when worrying about titles, they were mostly concerned about more tricky situations and didn’t think twice about a young married couple.
I’d guess it was accidental, unless there is some serious history there. I had to re-do several of my wedding invitations because I wrote Ms. instead of Dr.! It is kind of crazy that so many of my friends are real-life doctors.
It’s totally crazy. Sometimes I look at my husband and can hardly believe he’s this person who can HEAL people. Or, you know, stick them with needles and tubes and such.
Yeah my own family gets my husband’s title wrong all the time. And I’m pretty sure they know he’s a doctor!
I would have been annoyed too – but I would have been that wife that was annoyed (on the husbands side!)
S HATES the dr title, I will never understand that. I want to put doctor on everything and he just laughs at me. (He does seem to be treated differently when he tells people he is a doctor…)
I think it is important to respect the medical profession. After Lord knows how many years of school it takes to get to that point – I think it is really nice to finally get the title!
I would have to agree with you. Either it was a slight by the soon to be wife or she just does not know any better. Everyone has or can get access to the internet and/or books , so there is no excuse to just skip over protocol for addressing invitations. I am glad her husband corrected the mistake, so hopefully the future bride will make the correction.
Ack, I’m having flashbacks. There are a lot of doctors in my husband’s family plus his fam is from South Indian, the land of longass surnames (think: names like Krishnaswamisankaran and the like). Add into the mix the fact that wives take their husband’s first name as their last names and I was one confused bride. Addressing invitations was a beeeotch and a half. Often because of space constraints, I just lopped off Dr. titles completely. If people were offended, whoops.
Man, I had a tough one with that when addressing our invitations. T’s family has a few doctors in their family, so I wanted to make sure I was being correct, but then I wasn’t sure the formality of everything. I was really bad at spelling out formal names, too. But I think I got it right for the most part.
It’s funny because as a lawyer, I’m supposed to sign Esquire or Esq. after my name but I hardly ever do that. I always feel weird for writing that when I do on documents…
I would 100% have offended them.
I have always felt like calling someone Dr. outside of a hospital was highly pretentious… AND now I’m an asshole.
Sorry.
This is also why I never throw parties, invite people over, or plan to have a big wedding.
Because there is a 100% chance I am going to offend people simply by inviting them to my party.
Damn social rules.
Hahahaha! You are so cute.
I think that even the people who try super hard NOT to offend people will unintentionally offend SOMEONE. I think it’s worth trying to keep people’s feelings in mind… But it’s definitely not worth stressing over!
(And OMG weddings? You can’t HELP but offend people. If you have a big wedding, you’ll offend someone… If you have a small wedding you’ll offend someone… If you serve meat you’ll offend someone… If you have chocolate cake you’ll offend someone. Weddings are FRAUGHT with opportunities to offend people!)
It’s interesting to me that you would find calling someone a Dr. outside the hospital pretentious… I’m curious why?
I mean, I wouldn’t refer to my friend Alice as “Dr. Smith” because we are buddies… But if I ran into my OB/Gyn, I would address her as “Dr. Blahblah.”
I think I am the same way when it comes to running into a doctor of mine at the store. I’d for sure call them Dr. So and So in that instance since I probably don’t even know their first name.
But say with a friend I’m inviting to my wedding, I feel like at a certain point friendship trumps titles. Does that make
Damn.
Can I retract that statement?
Responding to you above… Yes, I think that makes sense… I think for me, I’ve always been so PROUD of my friends once they became doctors that it was always a PLEASURE to write “Dr. Alice Smith” on the Christmas card.
I know my husband lights up when he gets letters addressed to him like that… Although perhaps it’s a novelty that will wear off.
I sure love seeing letters addressed to me as “Mrs. Marriedname” – even if they’re from my mom or my best friend. There’s something delightful in seeing this big thing (to you), whether it’s a marriage or a degree, spelled out on an envelope.
My mom and I researched EXTENSIVELY how to address our wedding invitations so we didn’t offend anyone. We didn’t have as many doctor issues, but people not married but living together and all that stuff.
But I am now curious if the bride did it intentionally or not. It would be rather rude and quite a dis if was. I’m hoping it was just ignorance.
It’s sad to think that society (or just mean people) are still so hesitant to give credit to women with great accomplishments – if it was the intentional slight that her husband thinks.
I also didn’t know that you were called Dr. once that you completed school. Good to know!
I own all the Miss Manners books, so I know how to do a “Dr. and Mr.” address—but I guess I’d assume about 99% of the general public doesn’t even know how to do a “Dr. and MRS.”—and that even the ones who DO know, don’t know if that’s a “social” as well as a “professional” title. That is, they might know someone is Dr. Smith at work, but still think s/he’s Mr/s. Smith when being invited to a social event. Like, we call our pediatrics nurse “Nurse Rebecca,” but I wouldn’t address an invitation “Nurse Rebecca and Mr. John Smith.” And even though I must have read my Miss Manners books a dozen times, I can’t think off the top of my head if a professor is Prof. Smith on a social invitation as well as on a professional one.
It makes me uneasy and unhappy when people get super-peeved about things like this, because it’s EXACTLY why I’m so socially anxious: I worry and worry that every little thing I do is going to be given the worst possible interpretation. Psychologists tell me that’s in my head, but I think Alice’s husband is one of MILLIONS of examples that NO, I’m RIGHT, people DO put the worst possible spin on things.
And I should clarify that I think people don’t know AND don’t KNOW they don’t know, if you see what I mean. Like, I don’t think they think, “I don’t know how to do it and I don’t care, I won’t even bother to look it up!,” I think they think they ARE doing it right.
Yes, I absolutely agree with you.
And I think it’s important to approach life in the best way you can… while realizing that you may occasionally screw up. And hope that 99.9% of people will focus on the good intentions rather than the mess up.
(I used to answer customer service emails and I would always make my best effort to email people with a title – Mr. or Ms. or Dr. if there was any indication of profession. But occasionally I’d get a name that was not gender specific, so I’d address the email – by nature, an informal means of communication – to “Dear Jamie” or “Dear Taylor.” And once or twice, I got an irate response from someone who was livid at not being addressed as Mrs. or Dr. – when there’s no way I could be privy to that information.) (Some people will jump on any excuse to get all fired up.)
But I DO think that we owe it to ourselves and others to make the very best effort to do things right. And that’s why there are etiquette resources to consult… So you can confirm that what you think is right IS right… or not.
I’ve been a stranger. I’m an intern right now. Forgive me. 🙂
I think it is all kind of silly. My firs thought is “who get’s a wedding invitation and complains about it?!” What if her Bride’s maids did the invitations from an address list? I just sent my mom names and addresses and she did them for me.
While I agree that people should be recognized, not everything is about THEM. A wedding invitation is about the Bride and the Groom and their wedding. I didn’t change my last name, but people still call and address things to me as my husbands name. That’s fine, because if some one is thoughtful enough to include me in their happy event, I am more than happy to attend. Brides are busy. I’ve been there, and I will NEVER complain about anything related to a wedding. Just because you (the general kind of “you) feel disrespected doesn’t mean you need to turn around and hand that disrespect right back to some one else. I think if you’re friends, and it matters, and the situation could come up again, then just have a conversation, “ya know, my husband and I prefer to be addressed this way.” or an e-mail or something. I’m guessing the bride probably won’t be the one reading those response cards either.
In short, it’s not about the guests. It’s about the happy couple. Spread love not… anything else. lol
And that is my 48 cents.
I love the passive-aggressive response on the rsvp card. If the couple just made a mistake it will be a subtle way for the bride & groom to realize, I often rsvp back the way we would prefer our names to be listed on seating cards (if they were to be used). It is about the bride & groom, but 9 out of 10 times the bride and groom are also trying not to offend others on their big day so they can be happy! Maybe this way the bride & groom will know the proper way to address her from now on 🙂 That doctor title is well earned and deserved!
I personally think it’s all a little silly. I’m a physician and do not care one iota to be addressed as “Dr” on a wedding invite. In fact, someone recently asked me about how they should send address our invitation (my husband is a pastor, but not yet ordained – so he’s not technically a “rev” – there are so many issues when writing addresses. Sheesh.). Anyway…. I just said please write Mr. and Mrs. – I don’t need someone else to affirm what I’ve done in finishing med school. And I don’t like when my name comes before my husband’s name. Even though I know that technically it’s supposed to. Although I’m not going to get bent out of shape either way. I have better things to do with my time. 🙂
I still also have a hard time when our clinic nurses, some of whom have been nurses longer than I’ve been living, always call me Dr. I know they’re supposed to, but it’s still kind of weird.
This is a tough one because some people care a whole heap, while others simply blow it off. My opinion is that if you are going to use titles, you best do your research to make sure you get it right.
In this case, though it really could be a mistake. A lot of commenters didn’t know that once you graduate med school you are officially a Doctor. Seems completely reasonable that the inviting couple didn’t know that either.
While reading your post I realized it didn’t even occur to me while addressing my invites. I can’t wait to get invitations that say Dr. and Mrs. but I overlooked 2 cousins that are already docs. I’m sure they weren’t really offended by it, but I think it would have shown much more thought and consideration on my part if I had remembered. OoPs.
When I was addressing our wedding invites, I was overwhelmed with the number of PhDs, MDs, DDSs, and assorted other titles (military and fake-military like the police – ha, coppers!). Not to mention I didn’t know information about my newly married girlfriends and if they changed their names/hyphenated/kept the same last name. I ended up making approximately 60 phone calls to address 60 invites. I think some of us care too much about this issue!!
What if the Bride and Groom were not trying to offend Alice? Then Alice would end up looking pretentious.
I wouldn’t take that risk.
However there are nuances between friends so for them, it may have been just the right thing to do.
I agree that there could have been better ways to handle it – maybe a kind phone call… Or that it possibly was an honest mistake and should have been ignored. It’s so hard to know if a mistake came from a place of genuine innocent ignorance… Or if it was the result of malice. (I hope ignorance!!)
But I’m curious… Why do you think it’s pretentious to let someone know that your title is Dr.? Was it the method of letting them know you object to…? Or is it the very act of correcting someone?
Personally, I feel like it’s the same as correcting someone about the spelling of your name, but I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Very interesting, I never know that. Glad I already got married and didn’t invite any Dr.’s to the wedding haha!
I’ve had to explain the sequence of classroom, rotations, intern year, residency, full license so many times it doesn’t surprise me a bit that people outside of the medical world don’t know when the Dr. title becomes official. I jokingly call my husband Dr. already even though he’s three years away.
Although I gotta say, I’m SO looking forward to our first wedding invitation as Dr. and Mrs. 🙂
So… I’m pretty sure I am going to have people hate me here and that’s definitely not my intention but I can’t help but respond.
I work in an ICU in California as an RN. Now maybe in our unit we have a different rapport with our physicians but most of our nurses (including myself) call many of our doctors by their first name. Some we don’t… most of our attendings we call Dr. fill in the blank as well as our attending surgeons… but again I definitely know a few of our attendings that we call by their first name and none of them have ever had issues with it… like not even remotely. Even our ICU director we call by his first name. If I know the residents or interns I call them by their first name.
99.9% of the time… when they introduce themselves to us, they introduce themselves as “Hi, my name is John… I’m with the surgical team” so that is how we address them… most of the time our relationships with them is very casual that way.
It’s absolutely not out of disrespect that I call someone by their first name and if I am ever addressing them or introducing them in front of a patient or a family member I’ll say Dr. so and so…. if I don’t know them I’ll look at their badge and say “Dr. _____”…
Again maybe we are less formal where I work and I also think that because our nurses and our other team members are highly regarded here in this ICU… there is less of a divide between physicians, RN’s, RT’s etc. we are all kind of on the same team and regard each other as such.
I definitely hope they weren’t trying to offend your friend because that would just be plain rude and immature but to be honest I would have had no clue that it would have been an issue. Then again that’s just me and I have always been super awkward with social properness…. ugh so stressful… I hate offending people.
ugh, sorry this was so long… I just really wanted to explain the other side and I really hope it didn’t offend anyone!
I agree with Jessica @ One Shiny Star on this one…
And that is why invites were so important to me – not the actual invites themselves but making sure they were addressed properly. I wanted to make sure everyone’s name was right and that they got their proper titles.
I always have people spell my first name wrong – even FAMILY. And it pisses me off because it would honestly take two seconds to go on Facebook to figure it out. It bums me out, especially when it’s family spelling my name wrong. Get it right!
My husband gets super ticked. He earned the “Dr” and wants to be called that.
I’d have probably paid attention to that if I was doing invitations, but what if someone else offered to type up labels for them, and didn’t know? I don’t know – it seems like an honest mistake to me. Unless there’s back story that would imply otherwise, I’d just laugh it off.
I once received a wedding invitation for a guy I’d known for years and his soon-to-be wife I hadn’t known that long, and both my first and last name were spelled incorrectly. And I get that I have a long/hard name, but I totally felt like she kind of did it on purpose. Whatever. Some people are just assholes.
I personally don’t care about titles much. I work at a hospital, and there are some doctors who are REALLY into being called Doctor. (In fact, there’s one physician in our department who has “Dr. Firstname Lastname, MD” on his checks. Talk about overkill. You’re a doctor…we get it.) I think using a title is all about the situation and circumstances. Like if it’s a formal gathering, or if it’s a wedding invitation or something I think it’s good to get titles correct. But generally speaking? While I can understand that a lot of work goes into receiving a title and that it’s nice to have that recognized, I still feel like people who get antsy about their titles are officious and kind of annoying.
Oh my goodness do I understand their frustration- especially the husband’s. I don’t think he would be as upset, but I would. Maybe it’s because I’ve had to endure the years of training for him to get that title and dangit he better be called by it. At least on an invitation.
We double checked title stuff for our wedding too. Imagine how complex things get when not only do you have medical titles, but military ranks as well. Good times, good times.
This post elicited so many responses I didn’t read them through, but it seems that most responses agree that it was wrong. It seems to me that knowing to write “Dr.” is pretty common knowledge, but maybe she was living under a rock or just not thinking. I do know that I can’t stand it when I get a wedding invite that says “Mr and Mrs Husband’sname Lastname”. I know it’s formal and it’s protocol but still, I have my own first name thankyouverymuch. So I always fill the reply card back with my name and The Huz’s name and then our last names. I know it’s not proper but I just can’t have it any other way for some reason.
cw
A friend of mine recently addressed her invitations for her wedding and she chose who she wanted to address as a couple and with maiden names and with married names and with titles based upon her closeness to the couple and/or whether or not she liked them. Her fiance did not speak up once during this discussion. I was appalled. All the wedding party was there to help assemble the invitations and were privvy to this info. Not cool.
As a future doctor, I know my husband would have felt the same way as your friend’s husband. He would have done the passive-aggressive schtick as well. And it’s Mr. and Dr. MarriedLastName for the two of us when I’m done with school!
With the doctors I work with, I call them Dr. SoandSo in front of clients and in professional situations, but when we’re just chatting, it’s firstname and firstname, that’s how we differentiate it. But I never call them Firstname until they give me permission. Because many of them are like, “OMG extern, I am Firstname, not Dr. Lastname, please call me Firstname!”
As someone who works in the medical field, I am always cognizant of this – and nothing drives me crazy more than doctors who don’t sign things MD. ‘Cause then I often don’t realize and refer to them as Ms./Mr., which then leads to a critique and horrible awkwardness. Though obviously her friend should have know! But I do know of several couples where the invites were handled by the MOB or MOG, and in that case the person probably just didn’t know.
But shouldn’t the person who compiles the lists to give to the MOG or MOB specify names and titles and such?
Found your blog via Six Year Med and I’m enjoying reading. I know this is an older post but I had to comment. I’m the doctor (and my name happens to really be Alice, which may be why this post caught my eye). My husband is not so we are a Dr. and Mr. couple.
I don’t really mind having the Dr. left off or getting things addressed to Mr. and Mrs. but what does bug me are the many times I get things addressed to Dr. and Mrs. as the assumption is made that if one of us is a doctor it’s the man. Otherwise, I just assume people forgot it and dont ‘worry about it.
I wonder if I’m more aware of these titles since my father and I are both dentists.
And yes a dentist is a doctor!
And no, just b/c I am female, I am not a hygienist or an assistant.
And no, I did not change Mylastname to Hislastname when I got married.
If I let this bother me too much, I’d have to live in a constant state of argh!
Once , at a wedding, our seating card was labeled Mr. and Mrs. Hislastname but the reason given was the bride wanted all of the cards to look uniform, and you can’t argue with what a bride wants on her wedding day.