Do you use your Dr title

I remember that FRIENDS episode where someone, I think it was Russ's mom pointing out to someone that he was a Dr, only for one of the flatmates to turn around and state "he's not a REAL Dr though"

This is exactly how I would feel about using it, waiting for someone to point out that I wasn't a 'proper' Dr!

No but my point was that people have the right to choose. It's a professional qualification which endows a title; if you use it, it's your prerogative to do so.

But in fact you (and the Friends writers) have got that the wrong way round. A 'real' doctor is someone who has a PhD - a Doctor of Philosophy. A medical doctor doesn't usually have a PhD, and is referred to as a doctor in error, really. If we get pedantic about it, the only real doctors are PhD holders.

That wasn't in response to your post, actually, but to the one by Norfolkadam, which seemed to imply that medics have more of a right to the title, which doesn't really make sense to me, to be honest. Someone who has done a PhD is a "proper" doctor, but obviously it would be silly of him to insist on being called "Dr" everywhere. That's not why you do a PhD, after all.

And yeah, the M makes a bit of a difference.

Or just change your first name to something eccentric like Tibbles. There can't be that many people out there who are called Dr. Tibbles Jones.

^^ W00t, chance pentameter.

I don't think its pretentious or anything when people use it all the time. After all, you've earnt it for a reason.

It's an academic title which is entirely meaningless outside an academic context, though, so why use it?

For medical degrees some countries (like the US) give out an MD or equivalent to those who have done medical training and hence they are, indeed, proper doctors. In the UK qualified medics are given honourary use of the 'Dr' title and the MD is retained as a postgraduate research qualification for those in medical practice of some kind.

As far as I am aware the PhD is, throughout the world, reserved for pure research theses and thus a wouldn't be used as a primary medical qualfication. However, it is perfectly possible for a medical doctor in the UK to subsequently do a PhD.

As for the original question: I have Dr on my bank cards and business cards, etc., but if I've corresponded with a person more than once I usually just use first names.

A US MD is not the same as a UK MD. A US MD is their basic medical degree and not a research doctorate so is only equivalent to a UK primary medical degree (and is treated as such worldwide). A UK MD is a research doctorate like a PhD... they are actually traditionally considered higher than PhDs in the medical world as they tended to be more clinical and relevant to practice although that distinction is blurring quickly.