Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for June 08, 2013

What good are your fancy PhDs, now?

We’ve been asking that question all week. Is there a real doctor in the house ?

Many years ago, when I was a graduate student, my mother asked me when I expected to receive my doctorate. I told her it would probably take another two or three years. “My god,” she replied, “for spending all that time you could be a real doctor!”

Try “physician” or “medical doctor.”

Alex is more than likely a DES. anyone here a PhD, MD, EdD, DDS, Ed. D, DPA. DVM, DNP, JD, Psy. D, DBA, etc..? how long did that take? and, how long did you pay off your student loans?

Twins are a little “trickier”, but it is amazing folks forget how long women had babies without doctors. Note the increase in C-sections to REDUCE malpractice suits.

Helped deliver both of my kids, and delivered several others in “emergency” situations. Must admit that helping a woman with a broken arm, still stuck in a wrecked car, WAS more than a tad interesting. Both mother and daughter were just fine. (BTW, I’m waiting for a TV show or movie to stick around and show the delivery of the placenta, and checking to make sure it’s intact, or all there if in pieces, and all the other “neat stuff” that goes along with the delivery, and cleanup!)

This will be a memorable graduation for everyone – speaker included.

Um, not to ruin the dramatic moment, but labor usually doesn’t go that quickly, especially for first-time mothers. She should have enough time to get to the hospital if they leave now.

Phd for me. Seven years, including masters, no loans. Got a full ride to Emory university

Uh-oh. Folks, I see where this is going:

1. The birth of a child (or, in this case, two)…2. Another very, very, very long author’s sabbatical…3. A 20-year time skip, a la Funky Winkerbean! I knew this would happen someday!

Clearly, this isn’t the best time in the world to be a month-old “Doones-bopper”…1996 probably was not the best year to be born, either.

I can’t stand it!! (Weeping)

Of course, this is just a theory. Sorry, people. I know you all must think I’ve got a screw loose somewhere, but I’m also trying to keep everyone from arguing over politics or things that bear little to zero relevance to the day’s strip…

Welp, enough of that. Off to bed!

RSR, thank you for that. Some PhDs don’t expect the title Doctor except in professional settings, but they earned it.

I’ve heard a variation on Tucci’s tale. In this case it was a mother boasting that her son was was doctor “but not the kind that helps people.” Which I think is a better way to make the joke than the somewhat nastier “not the kind that does anyone any good.”

There are certainly a lot of non-medical doctors that do a lot of people a lot of good, such as designing all the computers that all of us are using to make our comments on.

Carry he diploma to her!

Adrian, look up the death rates for mothers and newborns in the 1600s…

dr. hackles..hee…you’re right..if a person says they have a 6 figure salary,that’s not enough..is it $800,000…is it $125,000?..there’s a lot of misrepresentation here..bordering on fraud,i’d say…

i think dr.kildare must have been better than dr.casey..just a hunch.

some schools insist on a thesis as well as all other criteria before issuing an M.D. That makes those doctors real doctors by any definition, Old1953….

To the tune of Mickey Mouse Club song, “M I T, P H D, M o n e y”…..Class of ’67.

Re: words….*

It sometimes seems that in our society, pretty much anything medical is considered more “real” than anything nonmedical.

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In the King James Bible, the senior theologians in the temple (who listened carefully to the the twelve-year-old Jesus) are called “doctors.”

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“Theory” means two almost opposite things in different contexts. Here’s a bit from Wikipedia:

“When used in non-scientific context, the word “theory” implies that something is unproven or speculative. As used in science, however, a theory is an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena.”

In my experience, when someone says, in casual conversation, “Of course, this is just a theory” or “My theory is…” the speaker is positing a hypothesis, an assumption, a speculation, or a guess.

My every attempt to figure out how not to post more than once has failed. Help, somebody?!

Why don’t they just call an ambulance? Even if it can’t get her to the hospital in time, it can certainly get to her in time, and my guess is that they are trained and equipped to deal with this — assuming it is a normal birth other than the twin factor.

There are a lot of us Doctors of Juris out there but no one calls us “doctor.”

Good to know. I think I’ve managed to delete all the duplicates.

Yes, you have to be careful how you use the refresh button. Even go so far as to sign out and get back on before hitting refresh if you just posted a comment, otherwise, it gets posted again. And again. When you want to submit, just press submit, not refresh.

annieb1012 said, less than a minute ago@Red Repoc** Thanks! My problem now is that my browser (Safari) isn’t offering me a “refresh” option. For a while, I’d submit my post, refrain from hitting “Refresh Comments,” go to another strip for a bit, and then find my post properly placed when I returned here. Last night, though, I did that with another strip, and my post never appeared. Sigh.

Quite honestly, I have both MDs and PhDs in my family and I don’t see any animus between the two groups.

I just posted by hitting “Submit,” hopping over to “Frazz,” and returning here without hitting “Refresh Comments.” Worked fine. Maybe last night’s problem was an anomaly.

I know my husband would not be thrilled to be called upon to deliver a baby, as an orthopaedic surgeon. We have a friend who had to help deliver a baby on a plane and he was an opthamalogist. He had not had to deliver a baby since med school, which was a long, long time ago. Still, he was better at it than most of the population, though not his cup of tea.

@jbzlaw ** More on word history: Wikipedia has this, amid much more, on the JD degree:

“The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree (such as the Dottore in Giurisprudenza in Italy and the Juris Utriusque Doctor in Germany and Central Europe).12 Originating from the 19th century Harvard movement for the scientific study of law, it is a law degree that in most common law jurisdictions is the primary professional preparation for lawyers. "

It seems the word “doctor” originally meant “teacher,” particularly an oral teacher, as contrasted with a “scribe,” who would lay down precepts in writing.

Three foota snow and an elderly midwife got me here 78 years ago, and I’m good with that.

@montessoriteacher “I have both MDs and PhDs in my family and I don’t see any animus between the two groups.”*

Thank you for that. I’ve never encountered it, either, except here, and frankly don’t get it.

Where I live they did lots of c-sections, but then they changed the schedule so docs got less money for doing a c-section than a live birth and all of a sudden c-sections became rare.

A PhD requires original research; MD requires more memorization, and is, academically speaking, equal to a second BS. Renaissance physicians invented MD to coat-tail on the respect PhDs had for several centuries previous, in order to seperate themselves form the barbers they still really were. PhD = real Dr.(Explanation courtesy of Isaac Asimov, PhD)

How many PdDs does it take to deliver a baby?

Just one, if he’s a cab driver.

This is no time to mince words! Boil some water and get a jar of leeches while I go search for a chirurgeon!

“I have witnessed several births from bovines and my wife.”.Geez, man, you’d think your wife would get top billing in that sentence. But you’re right, it is a miracle, of both life and anatomy.

I usually try to rise above the level of discussion on this board, but I just couldn’t let that one pass.Tucci, speaking as someone working very hard to become an “over credentialed idiot”, I think you’re being mean-spirited about a group of people you have not made much effort to understand.I’m about three chapters shy of a Ph.D. in history (It’s taken me 12 years, because I’m also a full-time high school teacher; I write at night, until I can’t stay awake any longer).I happen to believe that understanding where we came from and how we got to where we are is valuable to society, but, honestly, I’m doing this because I love it, just as most of my engineering friends are. We can debate its value if you like.But to say that getting a Ph.D. in the humanities is easy is just plain untrue. I had to show fluency in three languages before I started, then pass an oral exam in which professors could more or less ask any question they liked about three areas of history, then write a 350-page book subject to intense scrutiny from people with 50 years more experience and convince them that it’s a new, worthwhile, contribution to our understanding of the past.When I finish, I don’t expect to go around asking people to call me Dr. outside professional settings, but will I be proud of the right to the title? Heck yeah!If the end result isn’t something you’re interested in, fine. But don’t say it was easy if you haven’t tried it.Okay. Now I’ll step down off my soapbox again.

Two points:

1. I’ve had the site do multiple postings with jus a single “submit” in the last week or so. When trying to highlight ONE and delete the “extras”, all the copies disappeared, must be a glitch at GC server?

2. My comment on C sections WAS in reference to the fact that the lethality of childbirth, and infant “complications” IS on the rise, both mothers and infants are dying at an INCREASING RATE in the U.S.. And, yes, I do know the history of how lethal childbirth has been over the millennia, but our modern “lifestyle” here in the U.S. seems to be part of that infant mortality increase.

Also, it’s interesting that “pro-life” folks seem convinced that EVERY fertilization results in a happy, healthy, momma and infant. This is NOT the case at all, and the reason for a better sanity argument for those in the “pro-choice” camp.

It IS also interesting how large an object can pass through what is normally so small a passage. (Genetically small pelvis is also increasing, and THAT IS a problem that leads to C sections, as skeletal structures don’t expand as well as muscle tissues!)

Which on the “bovine” comment, many cattle today with inbreeding, are dependent upon a chain and pickup truck being a “delivery tool”! Which is also why many cattle left out on open range to deliver are dying, and that leads to blaming coyotes or other predators/scavengers being blamed for the deaths.

We are becoming the nation of “unintended consequences”.

I always found the best way to get a baby to come is to be absolutely committed to doing something else that day.

This is a riot and, um, yeah yeah yeah about first-time mothers. It’s a comic strip. It’s funny. Just enjoy, um.

“What we need are "low-cost " specialists, a 21st century version of a mid-wife…Did I mention the need for reform/improvement in the medical profession. ??."

You beat me to it.

According to a nursing text published sometimes in the sixties, if I remember correctly, fully 95% of births proceed unremarkably and successfully.

I would add that an experienced midwife can deal successfully with another 2 or 3% of those births, which leaves only a few parturitions which actually require draconian intervention.

But modern medicine treats femininity as a disease from puberty on. My health has been ruined, because when I developed obstructive sleep apnea in the 90s, I was treated for being ‘female’. Not only did I not get the treatment I needed for the OSA, but the HRT pushed me into breast cancer.

That doesn’t take into consideration the way my daughter’s birth was handled, either.

I agree that reforms are needed.

Sooo…it’s okay to slam a person’s “soft” science degree,despite the work they’ve put into it?

" But then they supplanted Mid Wives."

That’s what they did. Before that, even in ‘civilized’ places, so called (cities), women had little to fear from childbirth. Women didn’t die more often in childbirth than livestock did, say.

Doctors had to get rid of midwives, because it was so obvious that midwives’ patients were safer. They slandered and libeled them unmercifully, until only the destitute and country women would go to them, in spite of the crystal clear evidence they were better off in the hands of midwives. Of course, as doctors prevailed, midwives became not only fewer, but less skilled, too. By the turn of this century, a few midwives were still around, but they were pretty much rare avis. I don’t know much about today’s midwives, but I think they are trained by conventional medicine. Even so, I would prefer one, given a free choice.

Things are no better now. Not really – if you consider that this is the 21st century, we have sterile environments for procedures and services, we certainly have very much more knowledge than existed even 150 years ago – but we are still losing women to childbirth. The US statistics put us well behind other First World countries, as well as a couple of Third world countries.

The trouble is it’s not only childbirth. Medical services for women are terrible in general. Women, absent bones sticking out or fountains of arterial blood, are treated mostly for being female. Unless your condition is patently obvious, if you are a woman you will be treated for inadequate hormones (notice the breast cancer rate still soaring?), or for ‘hysteria’; women are still considered to have only one (1) organ, and of course, no intellect.

Yes, this has been very much my personal experience, but also of a good many other women I’ve known. The thing is, women have been treated this way by doctors for so long, they think they are being treated well. Some are treated adequately, but most have problems.

One of my friends is over seventy, and went to her new internist (my husband’s referral; he says he hears what you tell him), with her 20 prescriptions and a box full of physician recommended supplements. That’s his policy; new patient? Shovel all your medications in a box and bring it. He told her to dump all the OTC (but let her keep the ones she felt were useful: 2), and said he’d see her after he’d talked to her other doctors. Her other doctors are wholly disinterested in reducing her prescription burden; she’s been trying to do it for over twenty years, so she’s delighted.

She’s not unusual in my experience, just a little more extreme than most. I know what my brothers and other friends are taking, and they are nuts, but it’s not my body.

In a way, I’m very lucky. My system is so intolerant of chemical drugs that years ago my policy became: take no drug that makes you feel worse than the condition you are taking it for. Doctors don’t like me much, and mostly I don’t like them; the good ones are hard to find. This one seems like a good candidate, so I’m going to give him a shot when I qualify for Medicare in the fall. I suspected that he might be a good candidate when I sent my husband to him last fall. He is not an American born/trained doctor.

And isn’t that a dreadful thing to say? I hope it will soften it a little for me to say I have had two truly exceptional, caring, thinking doctors over the fifty years of my adulthood; three if you count my truly excellent oncologist. However, it’s a near certain fact that I wouldn’t need the oncologist, had the previous several doctors not mis diagnosed me, mis-medicated me, and in general mistreated me.

And that says nothing about the birth of my daughter, which I won’t inflict upon you :-)

Rallies are ‘reality’ ..?

Give. Me. A. Break.

rotflolastc1

And your degree is in…?

I read once that Oscar Wilde’s father was a doctor. The joke around town then was, “Why are his fingernails always dirty?” and the answer was “Because he scratches himself.” But I digress. This is a COMIC STRIP. Why always the philosophical discussions? Cheez.

@Gokie “a male name for my first name that sounded like my intended name.” Good grief! Did the first name ever get changed to the intended version?!

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Thanks for the tips on duplicates. Every time I’ve tried to delete one, both have disappeared, so I’ve done what you’ve suggested, and copied the post first so as not to have to reconstruct it. It now seems easiest just to “Submit” but not “Refresh Comments,” trusting “the system” to put things to rights. (Whatever the system may be….)

So when I needed a passport thirty-some-odd years later, I needed a birth certificate – mine had gone missing. Wrote to Atlanta, but didn’t get one (time was getting of the essence), so wrote my home town, and got the “part male” certificate. Mom and I had to go to our county courthouse, so she could swear that the certificate referred to me (she’d had my name put right when I was three). Could go on and on, but I’ll shut up.

Just recalled a poignant story illustrating one logical extreme of the assumption that only “real doctors” should deliver babies. Our next-door neighbor had been an Army nurse at Normandy, and had married an officer she cared for there. When it came time for their first child to be born, and she went to the hospital, the doctor couldn’t be found. The nurses on duty, convinced that they were not “authorized” to allow the birth to proceed, held the mother’s legs firmly together so the baby could not emerge. By the time the doctor arrived, the baby had died. The couple did go on to have four more children, but they would have liked to keep that first one, too. And that former Army nurse could have delivered the baby all by herself if the other nurses had simply stood back and let her.

Well,I’m not blessed with a degree of any sort,so you don’t have to get all defensive. I just have great respect for anyone who works hard for graduate/post-graduate/doctoral work,regardless of the major. I’m just noticing a pattern of professional disdain of “hard” scientists toward the “squishy” scientists,which I think is unfortunate and petty,and undermines science as a whole.

@Blackwolff9 “unfortunate and petty” Hear, hear! Disdain for others’ accomplishments is egocentric and narrow-minded. Every discipline has its value in the grand scheme of civilization – a word which includes the word “civil.”

And it’s not just the “squishy” sciences being dissed here, but pretty much anything outside Western medicine, particularly if it has no obvious “market value.”

Repetitive, too

They do much good but often not medical good.

Please note the new PhD also requesting a “real doctor.”Funny..Please also note the names of the twins seems settled.

Radical idea here: Maybe you could call a medical doctor an MD or even a physician (as in “Physician, heal thyself.”)

Haven’t seen John Pike today. As a grandfather, he probably feels for what Mike is going through now.

Trudeau is in new territory. Baby jokes, I can’t wait.

In general hard sciences are those which can be tested, soft or squishy “sciences” usually can not be tested rigorously. Those who favor one tend to question the other or resent it. Modern physics is in danger of going soft unless they can devise proper experiments.

@DavidHuieGreen * Sorry, no comprendo. Not sure what I said that you’re responding to.

I think this is the ULTIMATE graduation gift.

Since when “pedantic” is a synonym of “ridiculous”?

A PhD is a REAL doctor while one with an MD is a physician.

Showtime! Where’s Zonker?

Is this one of the cliff hangers?