Title of Dr should be sufficient for all doctors

Editor—I applaud Loudon's questioning of the title of Mr for surgeons,¹ but he is much too gentle with our sensitive colleagues. My history genes could grudgingly accept Mr for male consultant surgeons, but the absurdity is complex.

Married multiparous surgeons are usually referred to as Miss, a title more appropriate to an actress than a doctor. Gynaecologists and ophthalmologists are Dr in Scotland but Mr or Miss in England and Wales. Patients, who erroneously consider that all consultants are Mr or Miss, become confused when a young surgical senior house officer or registrar converts overnight from being addressed as Dr to being addressed as Mr or Miss on passing the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons.

I have no doubt that some patients fret with anxiety over getting the great man's (or woman's) title right. I am a physician, and I well recall one of my elderly patients whispering to her husband as she left my consulting room, “He was Dr Crisp, not Mr Crisp. He must be one of them junior doctors.”

British medicine makes itself ridiculous with its multiplicity and inconsistency of titles for practising doctors. The title Dr should be sufficient for all doctors regardless of age, sex, specialty, and distinction. I applaud the North American practice of preferring to use the title Dr rather than Professor when treating patients.