Reply To: Bills restricting or banning nurses with doctorate degrees from using “doctor”

[Jennifer]

Hi Susan,
I am also a DNP student in California in the PMHNP track. I personally chose a DNP program over a master’s was for two reasons. One, I wanted the most and best quality education possible as a PMHNP because I knew my knowledge and judgement will have significant impact on the mental/physical health of my patients once I become a provider. Two, I have a personal goal of opening my own telehealth business and I want to use the title of doctor when advertising my business. Of course, I have no intention of misleading my patients by using the title of doctor and I will always specify my credentials as a PMHNP, but I wanted the public to know that I have a terminal degree in my field. Jeffrey brought up a good point about the doctor joke in pop culture. The reality is no one refuses to call their dentist a doctor because they understand that the dentist is also a doctor. The dentists are not trying to pretend to be physicians, and neither are NPs! The AMA keeps using patients as an excuse to say nurses cannot use the title of doctor, but it is interesting that they seem to believe that patients are not capable of making distinctions among anyone with the title of doctor and therefore they must be the ones to “protect the patients” by not preventing nurses to use their own title.