this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
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An opthalmologist is an eye doctor. They go to medical school and do a residency for extra training. Optometrists have doctorates in optometry meaning they do four more years of school after their bachelor's. They can call themselves doctor because in the US that's the convention for doctorate's (in Europe ony medical doctors use the term). There's avast difference in intensity, depth, bredth, etc. of training between the two. It's easy to miss the difference if you're not familiar with the system.
Dr. is used extensively in Europe. It's even tacked on to existing titles, where in the US you rarely use Dr. if a "higher" honorific is applicable (e.g., it's usually just "Prof. X," where in parts of Europe it's "Prof. Dr. X").
Do you mean that doctorates in medical-adjacent fields (but not unqualified med school) don't use the term in Europe?
I worked with European PhDs at the NIH and the impression I got was that they don't use it regularly or even prefer it. Small sample size but at the upper echelons of their respective fields.