What's in a title? When it comes to 'Doctor', more than you might think

If you work in medicine, does it matter if you are called by your title? Is it all right if patients, colleagues and others call you by your first name?

The answer, of course, depends on whom you ask.

However, for many doctors who are women, that is not necessarily the central concern. It is more worrying that they and their male counterparts receive different forms of address.

Women are more often referred to by first name, even when the situation of communication is formal. The same does not happen to doctors who are men.