“Hy doc, can you take a look at this series of moles and tell me whether or not they converge?”

There's nothing that can't be solved by some version of the implicit function theorem

I used to drink, a lot. My then wife would take me to fancy parties where we ate things I can't pronounce and I pretended to care about the appropriate cutlery. She'd introduce me as Dr. KGIII and, sure enough, I was asked medical questions.

More than once have I drunkenly handed out bad medical advice.

I wonder if you can get sued for malpractice if you're a math doctor. They'd need proof either way.

I will not be baited into math puns.

At HN, going off on a tangent is frowned upon.

Not a real doctor then? ;-)

That was rough!

I'm really not sure why people assume it is an MD. This happens with great regularity to the point where I've long since discarded the title and ask to not be introduced as Dr. KGIII.

It seems a strange assumption for people to make, and it's often people with college educations that make that assumption.

> I'm really not sure why people assume it is an MD.

Not sure why you're unsure. It's one of the first 'professions' people get introduced to (as kids), and that label is there. "Tell the dr XYZ", "let's go to the dr", etc. It's a "doctor's office".

There's few other professions the general public interacts with with a label in front of it all the time, and it's almost always the medical one we know first, and most often.

Outside of academic settings, the 'dr' title doesn't get used much except by medical professionals.

Many of these people have spent time in academia. Surely, they encountered doctors who weren't medical doctors.

I have a PhD, as do most of the people I see at work on a daily basis. But I still assume - even at work! - that someone introduced as Dr. X is a medical doctor.

Someone mentioned that it may be due to our first exposure being a medical doctor and that makes some sense. I really don't know why this is. I've noticed this for years, to the point where it has even made me tired of responding that I'm not a medical doctor.

You and I are probably sharing similar experiences. In both our cases, we probably have had much more exposure to doctors who aren't medical practitioners.

Yet, I don't immediately think of medical doctor.

Caveat, I am not sure if I used to immediately think medical doctor before I noticed the assumptions being made about me. I don't know if I assumed doctor meant medical doctor before I was exposed to the bias.

I may have, but my brain doesn't function like that and I don't remember.

shrugs

It's been a bit of a personal mystery since 1991. Technically, probably sooner.

Edit: Removed sentence that could be interpreted as a pejorative towards my ex and added nothing to the post.

Culturally, "doctor" just means "medical doctor." I think that's because many people need to interact with, and talk about, medical doctors. And they need a name for that kind of person, and our language landed on "doctor." That is, as far as the English language is concerned, "doctor" is more profession than title. Even to the point that "to doctor" something is to fix it in some way.

Personally, the only time I have volunteered the honorific is when talking to my congressional representatives.

I dealt with government and the public fairly often but not so much at the federal level.

One of my favorite examples:

I was on a public access cable show talking about how the project was going to be a temporary problem for traffic congestion and about the benefits of the project.

We took a short break and came back for the final ten minutes which was to be a question and answer phase. The questions were to come from audience members or by phone. The audience was made up entirely of the meager production crew and an employee of mine.

The host invited people to call in and ask Dr. KGIII questions. The very first one was a person with a strong regional accent and I don't remember the exact verbiage but they had a question about their irritable bowel syndrome - or wanted it diagnosed, something like that.

I explained that I wasn't a medical doctor and the person on the phone responded with something like, "Well, you're a doctor, ain't you? You gotta know something!"

I nearly peed myself laughing. I'll leave the region out of the story, I don't really want to reinforce stereotypes.

Similar for "architect" or sometimes "engineer" in our space.

Being introduced as a mathematician may be better. Granted, I know even that gets weird, strangely concistent across people responses. But that’s people.