san@eagle.UUCP (08/01/83)
Is it really true that the phrase "woman doctor" is more prevalent and more respectable than "lady doctor" in American English? In British English the phrase "lady doctor" is quite common and I, for one, have never heard "woman doctor".
annej@tekecs.UUCP (Anne Jacko) (08/03/83)
Personally, both "woman doctor" and "lady doctor" offend me. How about just "doctor"? Maybe you can answer your own question by deciding which of "man doctor" or "gentleman doctor" you prefer. Flaming only slightly, Anne Jacko, Tektronix
waltt@tekecs.UUCP (Walt Tucker) (08/04/83)
**mild flame**
Do you seriously advocate doing away with the prefix denoting sex?
Whether they are called "lady", "women", "gentleman", or "man"
doctors, in some branches of the medical profession it is nice
to know the sex of your doctor.
As an example, some women get nervous going to a male gynecologist,
but feel perfectly comfortable when the doctor is female. That is
not to say that both are not competent, it is the nuroses of the
patient that requires the prefix, not the profession. Another example
is surgery. Irrational as it is, some patients prefer male surgeons
when "going under the knife".
I agree that in general and most other types of practitioning sex
couldn't make a damn bit of difference, but in some areas it be-
comes rather touchy (especially when treating special areas of the body).
The medical profession is probably (one of) the largest areas in
which customers (patients) request to know the sex of their
contracting party (also because of the wide cross-section of society
the constitutes patients). In these situations, the differentiation
between male and female is going to occur, whether you like it or not.
------Flame off---
Walt Tucker
(also Tektronix, about 100 feet from Ann)
tektronix!tekecs!waltt courtney@hp-pcd.UUCP (Courtney Loomis) (08/06/83)
#R:eagle:-105300:hp-pcd:19100009:000:374
hp-pcd!courtney Aug 5 12:34:00 1983
If a patient wants to know the sex of a doctor, s/he can ask:
" Is the doctor a man or a woman ? "
!!!!
(there is no need for it to be part of their title)
Courtney Loomis
(at HP, about 80 miles from Anne and Walt)
hplabs!hp-pcd!courtneyurban@trwspp.UUCP (08/08/83)
Actually, isn't the etymologically correct form for `woman doctor' (which sounds parallel to `eye doctor' to me) something like `doctrix'? Sounds like a new Un*x debugger :-)