'Please, Call Me Dr. Biden'

Looks like pomposity runs in the family.

Vice President Joe Biden often joked on the campaign trail about his wife's lofty educational achievements. She had two master's degrees and had already worked for nearly a quarter-century as a college community instructor. But he had a better idea.

"Why don't you go out and get a doctorate and make us some real money?" he said he told her. (That was always good for a laugh, especially in university towns.)

In 2007, at 55, Jill Biden did earn a doctorate -- in education, from the University of Delaware. Since then, in campaign news releases and now in White House announcements, she is "Dr. Jill Biden." This strikes some people as perfectly appropriate and others as slightly pompous, a quality often ascribed to her voluble husband.
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"Ordinarily when someone goes by doctor and they are a PhD, not an MD, I find it a little bit obnoxious," Sullivan said. "But it makes me smile because it's a reminder that she's her own person. She wasn't there as an appendage; she was there as a professional in her own right."

Newspapers, including The Times, generally do not use the honorific "Dr." unless the person in question has a medical degree.

"My feeling is if you can't heal the sick, we don't call you doctor," said Bill Walsh, copy desk chief for the Washington Post's A section and the author of two language books.

Joe Biden, who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is expected to travel widely in his new job. But he may need to tone down the Dr. Jill Biden stories, should he find himself in Germany with his wife.

Last year, according to the Post, at least seven Americans (with degrees from places like Cornell and Caltech) were investigated for the crime of "title fraud" for calling themselves doctor on business cards, resumes and websites. Only people who have earned advanced degrees in Germany or other European Union countries may legally call themselves that.

Estela Bensimon, a professor at USC's Center for Education, said she cared about being called Dr. Bensimon only if she was being addressed by her first name while male colleagues were called doctor.

"That often happens with women academics around male academics," she said. "I don't feel I need to be called doctor to be respected. Also, just think if you were on an airplane and you called yourself doctor and there was an emergency."