Do Surgeons Wish to Become Doctors?

Objectives To gauge opinion among otolaryngologists about their wish to retain the title Mr, Miss, Ms or Mrs or to adopt the title of doctor.Design An e-mail questionnaire sent to all members of ENT-UK (The British Association of Otolaryngologists–-Head and Neck Surgeons), who had registered an e-mail address with the ENT-UK secretariat.Setting The specialty group of otolaryngologists in the UK.Participants 723 recipients of e-mails, who were members or fellows of a surgical Royal College and, by convention in the UK, entitled to adopt the title Mr, Miss, Ms or Mrs.Results 304 recipients of the e-mail questionnaire responded. 39% were not aware of any proposals to change the convention, addressing surgeons as ‘doctor’ in the future. Overall, 61.8% were in favour of retaining the current convention and retaining the title Mr or a female equivalent. Applying the null hypothesis that most surgeons would not like to change a title, the χ 2 test produced a highly significant P value of 0.0002. Of female respondents, however, only 43% supported retention of the current convention. Using Fisher's exact test to compare female and male respondents, the two-sided P value was highly significant at 0.006, with female respondents favouring the title of doctor.Conclusions A large proportion of ENT surgeons in the UK responded to the questionnaire. They were unaware of proposals to change the current convention of address for surgeons. A significant number of those responding were in favour of retaining the current convention. The small proportion of female respondents indicated a preference for being addressed as ‘doctor’.