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{{quote|'''"[[Shout-Out|Dangit, Jim, I'm an astronomer, not a doctor!]] I mean, I am a doctor, but not that kind of doctor. I have a doctorate, it's not the same thing. You can't help people with a doctorate; [[Heroic Self-Deprecation|you just sit there and you're useless!]]"''|'''[[The Professor|Dr. Doppler]]''', ''[[Treasure Planet]]''}}
 
If someone in TV-land is referred to as "the doctor", it means they're a medical doctor.<ref>With [[Doctor Who|one famous exception]] who travels in a TARDIS.</ref> It might not be explicitly mentioned, possibly even outright denied, but anyone called the doctor seems to be [[Open-Heart Dentistry|able to deliver any and all surgical operations]] and medical [[Techno Babble]] required by the plot. There are no exceptions (well, other than [[Doctor Who|him]]). All those other guys who've got doctorates in science, law and philosophy are helpfully distinguished from ''real'' doctors with vaguely-academic titles like "professor", if they're even awarded one at all.
 
'''"Not That Kind of Doctor"''' as a trope stems from a modern convention: in the past, "Doctor" had a purely academic connotation—theconnotation — the word itself derives from the Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher". At some point, the word (in English, at least) began to shift from being the title of a learned person or a person with a doctorate, to meaning the same as "physician". Originally, the M.D. was a doctorate in medicine, but in some places, like the US and Canada, it became the first professional degree. (In the UK and Ireland, an MB ChB—bachelor of medicine & surgery—are the first ''undergraduate'' degrees; holders are addressed as "Doctor" regardless. While Surgeons—which require a graduate degree, equivalent to a North American MD in length of education—are only addressed as Mr, Mrs, or Miss in a form of reverse snobbery.<ref>Historically, being a doctor (the equivalent to GP today) was considered a more upper-class and gentlemanly career than surgery, as they do not have to get their hands dirty. Most surgeons are simply working-class barbers. However when the modern era rolled around and surgery become a more specialized and prestigious line of work than ''mere'' doctoring, the surgeons refused the title of Doctor as a sort of passive-aggressive middle-finger to the snobs who denied them the title 300-ish years previously.</ref>) It is easy to see how the term "doctor" was slowly divorced from its academic roots. This has gone so far that it is common for it to be thought that "real" doctors are physicians... which brings us to this trope. And [[MD Envy]] to boot.
 
Certain professions blur the line. A psychiatrist or forensic pathologist will necessarily have a medical doctorate, but their main occupation isn't taking care of people's cuts and sniffles. If they're suddenly forced to act like that kind of doctor—like, say, they're on hand when someone gets hit by a car—expect them to act awkward and unsure before they save the day.
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** Chopper's mentor Dr. Hiriluk at least claimed to be that kind of doctor; whether he had a legitimate degree is questionable, as most folks on Drum Island considered him a charlatan and quack. His skills were certainly good enough to save Chopper's life when they first met.
** Dr. Vegepunk may or may not be that kind of doctor, as he is [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist|a genius in ''several'' fields]], some of them at least related to medicine.
** Dr. Hogback from the Thriller Bark Arc was that kind of doctor and a respected one in the field until he got bored and started using... [[Necromancer| controversial methods.]]
 
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
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* [[Lampshade Hanging]] in ''[[Justice Society of America]]'', when Black Canary is surprised that Dr Mid-Nite ''is'' that kind of doctor, since most supers who call themselves "Dr" aren't.
* [[Batman|Bruce Wayne's]] deceased father, Dr. Thomas Wayne, was that kind of doctor.
** Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, head of the eponymous [[Bedlam House]] is a psychiatrist, though not the most sane one.
* ''[[X-Men]]'':
** Zigzagged with Dr. Moira MacTaggert. Her specialties seem to be biochemistry and genetics, and she even earned a Nobel Prize for the latter, so one can assume she has degrees in both. While she could likely treat an injury or disease easily, whether she could legally work as a physician isn't clear.
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* Dr. Sam Beckett from ''[[Quantum Leap]]'' straddles the line; while still amnesiac he recalls how to halt a premature labor, and then balks when Al tells him to do something requiring another degree; turns out medicine is just one of the ''six'' doctorates he holds.
* The vets in ''[[All Creatures Great and Small]]'' sometimes have clients who mistake them for traditional doctors, often under embarrassing circumstances. Tristan once went on a house-call to an infertile couple under the mistaken belief that he was going to artificially inseminate their cow. Another time a woman turned up at the surgery asking for confirmation of her pregnancy and Siegfried pretended to [[Covert Pervert|comply with her wishes]] in order to freak out Tristan and James.
* During one episode of ''[[Leverage]]"'' ("The [[Rashomon Style|Rashomon]] Job"), Sophie runs into Dr. Wes Abernathy. She asks what his PhD is in, and he announces that he is a surgeon.
* Inverted in Season 17 of ''[[The Amazing Race]]'' when, after being U-Turned, Chad started taunting Nat at the Roadblock. Though really, it might have just been because Chad didn't know the difference between an MD and a PhD.
{{quote|'''Chad''': Nat you should be able to get this easy. How's that PhD helping you?
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'''Reid''': No, I didn't. I am a doctor, so technically it wasn't a lie.
'''Garcia''': What was it, then?
'''Reid''': Um... Second opinion.
'''Garcia''': You're my bitch now. }}
* The ''[[CSI]]'' franchise has two ex-doctors. ''[[CSI]]'' had Dr. Ray Langston and ''[[CSI: NY]]'' has Dr. Sheldon Hawkes. Both have ended up giving emergency care a time or two. Hawkes even helps with a bicycle first aid team in the park. Of course, the medical examiners (Robbins, Hammerbeck) are also doctors, but don't practice medicine.
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== Other kinds of doctors ==
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
* [[Doctor Doom]] dropped out of school after his [[Freak Lab Accident]] and then proceeded to learn magic and take over a country. He never actually finished his doctorate. No one would argue that he doesn't deserve one, but he simply never finished the paperwork. Ordering the [[Ruritania|University of Latvaria]] to give him a degree (what the fanon suggests he did) doesn't count, even though the thesis defense would have been... interesting.
* [[Spider-Man|Spider-Man's]]'s foe Dr. Octopus has a doctorate in nuclear physics.
** Lampshaded in ''[[Secret Wars]]'': Volcana asks Doctor Octopus to tend to the severely wounded Molecule Man; Octopus replies that his doctorate is in nuclear physics, not medicine, but he'll see what he can do...
*** Conversely, every doctorate brings full knowledge of robotics, including the Entomology course (see Henry Pym).
** Also appears in ''Ultimate Spiderman''. Peter is injured in a fight and goes to Dr Connors for help. Although he isn't an MD, as he is quick to point out, he is persuaded to treat the wound anyway.
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* Brother Voodoo (Dr. Jericho Drumm) is a psychologist. Some readers assumed when they saw him go by 'Doctor Voodoo' that the title had come along with the office of Sorcerer Supreme, which he inherited from Doctor Strange.
* Kitty Pryde (from [[X-Men]]); after graduating from the Robert Heinlein University, she holds doctorates in Engineering and Astrophysics.
* ''[[Batman]]'' examples:
** Dr. Pamela Isley (aka Poison Ivy) in post-crisis ''[[Batman]]'' continuity, her PhD is in botany. In some cases though, she can use her expertise in chemistry to heal or treat humans, going so far as to cure Nora Fries in the animated ''[[Harley Quinn (TV series)|Harley Quinn]]''.
* [[Harley Quinn]] herself; as Dr. Harlene Quinzell, she was a Psy.D. Of course, there's Dr. Hugo Strange and Dr. Jonathan Crane, and ''those'' are just the most well-known [[Psycho Psychologist]] types among Batman's [[Rogues Gallery]].
 
=== [[Fan Works]] ===
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'''Aquaman''': A ''hero'' doctor, through and through!
'''The Atom''': ...a physicist. }}
** [[Played With]], however—his knowledge of physics allows him [[The Incredible Shrinking Man|to shrink down]] and pull off a [[Fantastic Voyage Plot]] to save [[Batman]] anyway.
* ''[[Family Guy]]'': When the Griffin family starts working with [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|Dr. Diddy]] at his record label, Chris asks Diddy if he could perform surgery on himself in the event he got shot. Whereupon Dr. Diddy calmly replies that his doctorate is in optometry.
* In Booster Gold's episode of [[Justice League Unlimited]], he comes across a woman giving birth and tries to pass responsibility to Doctor Simmons, who informs him that she's a physicist.
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** On the other hand, some teachers with a doctorate or professor's degree at some universities and schools don't insist on being called "Professor/Dr. (name)", and even discourage it in many cases. At many other colleges and universities, however, "Doctor So-and-so" or "Professor So-and-so" is the established way for a student to address their doctorate-holding instructor, and to do otherwise would come across as, at worst, very rude.
* [[Uwe Boll]] also has a doctorate in literature. Good luck finding an unironic mention of him as "Doctor Boll", though.
** Is he [[Small Name, Big Ego|claiming]] to be [[Blatant Lies|to be a genius]] in that field, too?
* Doctoral students everywhere. After going through the very long, sometimes soul-sucking process of actually getting that PhD, you damn well want some acknowledgmentacknowledgement for it. And yet the public insists on thinking that all doctors are physicians.
* The [[Armchair Psychology|radio talk therapist]] Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a doctor of physiology, not psychiatry. Not false advertising exactly (she's perfectly entitled to put Dr. before her name), but misleading.
* Aversion: ''Every'' university graduate in Italy is referred to as "Dottore" or "Dottoressa." Unless, that is, they have some more prestigious title, such as "Avvocato" (<s>avocado</s> lawyer) or even better, "Ingegnere" (engineer.).
** It's so pervasive that many people will tend to automatically address as "dottore" someone who seems to be of high status. Also, even some non-graduates may be addressed by a title if their profession commands respect: the most common example is "Geometra" (a skilled construction technician, who has authority to approve some civil engineering projects).
* Dr. Phil is not a medical doctor, but has a doctorate in psychology.
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** In ''[[Crossing Jordan]]'', when Dr. Jack Slocum [[Tyrant Takes the Helm|takes over]], his office door reads "Jack Slocum MD, PhD, JD". So he's ''all three kinds of doctor!''
*** One imagines that he has an uncomfortable time at medical and legal conventions, given the lawyer jokes and doctor jokes that tend to fly at such events.
** Madalyn Murray O'Hair actually was commonly referred to as "Dr. O'Hair" in American Atheist publications, though technically she earned a L.L.B which was [http://books.google.com/books?id=PitAMz7VfKAC&pg=PA29&dq=South+Texas+College+of+Law&hl=en&ei=Y3PATLGlM4W0sAO3wIXYCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false later converted] when all first professional law degrees in the US were automatically changed to JDs. (However, her school wasn't ABA approved so she couldn't sit for the bar exam.) Though in an inversion, she most likely was hoping to be mistaken for "not that kind of doctor", because despite her public legal battles earlier in her life, her articles by this point tended to delve into history, and obviously a Ph.D., especially if it was assumed to be in some kind of study of history as would be assumed for a doctor writing papers on history without mentioning otherwise, would add far more credibility to her many less -than -mainstream views (and because, as previously mentioned, no lawyer without a M.D. or Ph.D. refers to themselves as a doctor in the first place, so gaining legal credibility wouldn't make sense unless she hoped to be mistaken for a Doctor of Juridical Science, who do refer to themselves as "doctor").
* First Lady Jill Biden has been criticized for using the title [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-dr-jill-biden2-2009feb02,0,548459.story because she's not that kind of doctor]; her degree is in Education.
* Nutritionist Gillian McKeith, who "voluntarily" stopped calling herself Dr. Gillian McKeith on the grounds she wasn't a medical doctor, just before the Advertising Standards Authority insisted that she stop calling herself that because the college she got her PhD from was "not accredited by any recognised educational authority".
** In other words, not only is she Not That Kind of Doctor, she's not actually ''any'' kind of doctor.
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* Dr. Susan Block, best known for her sex advice, got her graduate and post-graduate degrees in philosophy, though "with an emphasis in psychology" and her undergraduate degree was in theater studies.
* Having grown up the child of a university administrator, this troper would like to point out that it's fairly common for this to come into play among staff members. Doctorates in business, literature, engineering and history are formally addressed in pretty much the same way, especially with letters and public addresses, as a sign of respect.
* Theodor Geisel, AKA "[[Dr. Seuss]]", was ''technically'' a doctor, his degree being a a D.Phil. in English Literature from Oxford; the "Dr." part of his signature was merely a pen name.
* [[All the Little Germanies|Field Marshal Blücher]] was given an honorary doctorate (in law) by Oxford University. But then his work ''did'' [[Black Comedy|contribute to medical science]]
** As did that of the Duke of Wellington who was similarly honoured the same day, June 14, 1814. Blücher at the time joked that if they made him an honorary doctor they should also make Gneisenau, his chief of staff, an honorary apothecary. He and Gneisenau got honorary doctorates (in philosophy) from Berlin University later that year.
* In one of dialects of my{{who}} language 'physicist' meant physician. Nucleus shares the word with kernel. So when female presented herself as nuclear physicist... (given—it was in time when nuclear physics what esoteric area of physics and 'no one' heard of it).
* [[Dr. Dre]] did not attend any university. He does have an honorary degree in Street Knowledge, though.
* Despite his claims to the contrary, creationist Kent "Dr. Dino" Hovind does not hold a valid doctorate. He bought his "degree" from a non-accredited "university" where he [[Did Not Do the Research]].
* Dr Pepper and its knockoffs (of course)
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* Dr. Lewis Yablonski is a sociologist who in 1967 visited several hippie communes and residences to gather information for a book (later titled ''The Hippie Trip''). When he went to Morningstar in Northern California, he said "I'm Dr. Yablonski, they're expecting me" and the man who greeted him immediately turned around and called out "The doctor's here! Is anyone sick?"
* According to AP style, the Dr. honorific is only supposed to be used for actual medical doctors.
* Derek Smart, the man behind ''[[Battlecruiser 3000AD]]'' and ''Universal Combat'', claims to possess a doctorate and frequently titles himself as Ph.D, but his thesis is not listed anywhere, and he has not divulged basic details about his doctorate, such as which college he attended or who was his supervisor. There's understandable suspicion that he's lying.
 
{{reflist}}
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