I received a question yesterday on 1 March 2023 from an ex-colleague of mine when we were working at the Institute for Medical Research in Malaysia in the 1970’2 till the mid 1990’s.
It reads:
Dr Lim, may I know why the title Professor Dr is given to a teacher who is attached to a technical college for mammals.
Here’s my answer:
Dear Mano,
The answer your question is, this is because everyone likes to be called a professor before he or she is forced to enter into that black hole, called ‘grave’ beneath the ground '? – jokingly
So the teacher you mentioned gave himself the title Professor and Doctor as a consolidation title before he or she dies. I think it would be more blessed for their souls in the next world after they have died than to be in this world using all kinds of titles. See my explanation here:
https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2023/02/material-blessings-here-on-earth-or.html
A Professor is a university academic appointment, not some title earned like a PhD and it is only valid as long as the person is still a professor in the university. But once he leaves the university or has retired, he ceased to be a professor, and he or she is no longer a professor or eligible to be called or addresses as a professor unless the university confers him or her title Emeritus Professor on retirement in which case he or she is still allowed and is still eligible to be address as Emeritus Professor. But NO, definitely NO to anyone who claims to be a “professor” when he or she is NOT even attached to any university as this is a very learned, academically high and exclusive appointment.
I am very aware some people calls themselves as a “professor” when he or she is not even a graduate or attached to any very senior teaching appointment in any university. He /she does some unrecognized teaching or practice on his or her own and calls himself / herself a “professor” without even wanting to reveal his / her degrees or qualification. That’s it. Full stop.
Then we also get a lot of people these days with only a Bachelor' degree who call themselves a ‘doctor' when academically, legally, and technically they are not eligible for this.
The title Doctor (Dr) is bestowed only on those who actually holds a Doctorate degree such as a PhD or a DSc
That's why in the UK all surgeons are always addressed as "Mr" because they were traditionally barbers or barber surgeons who cut off limbs and bodies except for physicians whom patients called as 'doctors' as a courtesy title only, and not that they are educationally and legally eligible for it.
In the UK male surgeons are always addressed as "Mr" and female surgeons as "Miss” irrespective of their marital status. Female surgeons would not call themselves as Ms, Mrs or Madam. It is always Miss and nothing else even if they are married 10 times over, or are already a great, great grandmother.
But for us who are much higher up in academia, we never call or address a medical doctor as a "doctor'. We merely call them as clinicians. That's it. In fact, the term “clinicians” would be much more appropriate for medical doctor’s with only a basic bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery (MBBS).
Most of us already have MDs, Master's degrees, PhDs who additionally are also Senior Fellows of Royal Learned Societies in Medicine or in Science in London.
Admissions as fellowships into some of these Chartered Royal Learned Societies are exceedingly, exceedingly difficult unless they have higher degrees such as the higher postgraduate MD or a PhD or are Fellows of the Royal Colleges of Physicians or Surgeons, etc, etc. plus already in very senior positions such as Head of a medical or surgical department, or have already published at least a hundred research papers in prestigious scientific journals. That's it. There is no argument about this, or other way out to gain Fellowship of these Chartered Royal Societies
Hence we normally address a medical doctor as just a clinician, or even a nurse as a nurse clinician as in Singapore or in the United States of America
Even that, the job description "clinician" may not necessarily be confined for medical doctors, though generally the alternative name for a medical doctor is a clinician. This is because medical doctors do clinical work where they come directly with the patient.
But there are other health workers like nurses, medical assistants, paramedics who do far more clinical work than doctors. It is the nurses, not the doctor who periodically take blood pressure of the patients, taking their body temperatures, taking readings of ECG, setting up intravenous drips and periodically monitoring their rates of flow. It is also the nurses who set up the oxygen supply and give the supplementary oxygen to their patients and monitoring their flow rates. They are actually the ones who gives the medication and injections to the patients while dressing their wounds etc, etc. These are all very busy clinical work done by the nurses.
In fact any health-care professionals or workers such as nurses, physiotherapists, and dieticians who all come directly with the patient to do clinical work are all clinicians - not just the doctor.
This term "clinician" also applies to clinically-trained nutritionists who are experts in recognizing and diagnosing nutritional deficiency diseases for which a doctor has very little training in nutrition. In fact during a nutrition and health survey the nutritionist is always present to help the medical doctors identify and diagnose nutritional deficiency diseases especially for sub-clinical nutritional deficiency conditions where clinical features do not show up. This depends whether or not the nutritionist had formal university training in the clinical aspects of nutrition.
Some nutritionists who are trained in clinical nutrition are able to diagnose and recognize clinical features of all sorts of nutritional deficiency diseases far expertly than medical doctors. This depends on their previous university training. Some have no clinical training at all. It all depends on which university they qualify.
If they are trained clinical work, they will additionally apply other clinical approaches such as biochemical investigations, anthropometry, weights and heights, skin-fold measurements, food consumption. A clinically-trained nutritionist is a specialist to whom a doctor would consult in a field health survey or in individual cases. The doctor has very little training or none at all in nutrition will consult and refer nutrition cases to the nutritionist as a specialist.
The nutritionist trained at the University of London like myself is a health-care professional. He is an expert in the recognition and diagnosis of nutritional disorders - especially those nutritionists trained by Professor Dr John Yudkin at Queen Elizabeth College, University of London. However, I need to emphasize not all nutritionists are clinically-trained in nutrition. It depends on the syllabus and the university where they were trained. So if they they are not exposed to the clinical aspects of nutrition during their training, they will have no ideas how to identify clinical features of nutrition diseases, then in that case they are not clinical nutritionist - that's for sure. They do only preventive work. It depends from which university they were trained. I have come across some nutritionists, and medical doctors too who have no clue how to recognize and diagnose nutrition deficiency diseases because they were not trained in that area. It is a specialized area
The pioneering work of Professor John Yudkin, who founded the world's first dedicated Department of Nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College (QEC), completely reshaped how clinical nutrition is taught and applied. The scenario I described perfectly demonstrates why these highly trained medical doctors specializing in nutrition, as well as non-medical doctors who are nutritionists are considered elite clinical and public health experts
1. The Legacy of Yudkin’s QEC Training
Professor Yudkin recognized that conventional medical degrees left a massive blind spot regarding metabolic biochemistry and applied nutrition. The rigorous, specialized program he established at QEC taught both to medical and non-medical students how to use the complete toolkit of Clinical Nutritional Assessment:
· Clinical/Physical Signs: Recognizing early physical manifestations of deficiency (e.g., angular stomatitis, follicular hyperkeratosis, or glossitis) long before catastrophic disease sets in.
· Biochemical: Interpreting metabolic markers, blood panels, and functional tissue testing.
· Anthropometric: Measuring physical parameters (e.g., skinfold thickness, body composition changes) to track physical wasting or malnutrition.
· Dietary: Deploying precise food consumption surveys to evaluate individual and population-wide nutritional status.
2. Displacing Doctors in Health and Nutrition Surveys
In large-scale epidemiological research and national health surveys, these specialized nutritionists often manage the assessment protocols because general medical doctors are not trained to do so.
A standard medical doctor is trained to identify overt disease (e.g., diagnosing full-blown scurvy, rickets, or severe clinical anemia). They generally lack the training to detect sub-clinical, marginal nutritional deficiencies or to systematically track population-level dietary trends.
3. The Rarity of True Applied Clinical Nutrition Courses
However, only certain universities offer these applied nutrition courses with clinical training. Because a standard "science degree" or "food science degree" lacks patient interaction, true clinical training in nutrition is restricted to specific postgraduate programs.
I was taught by many Jewish professors when I did my postgraduate and research in British universities, and one them was John Yudkin at Queen Elizabeth College, University of London.
I was extremely fortunate to be the first and only Malaysian during that time who studied and did my postgraduate diploma - equivalent to an MSc in nutrition directly under Professor Dr John Yudkin from 1965 till 1966. He taught and drilled us thoroughly including all my six course mates who were doctors from various countries how to recognise nutritional disorders.
He was a legend - a very famous, celebrated and a highly qualified physician, a biologist, a chemist, a nutritionist, a physiologist. He received all his medical degrees, as well as his doctorate degrees (PhD) from the University of Cambridge and also from the University of London. He was later the Chair in all these professions at the University of London when I was studying under him.
In one of his books on NUTRITION, he merely wrote his name as:
John Yudkin
MA, MD, PhD, FRCP, FRIC, FIBiol.
But just look at the strings of elite degrees behind his name, without even writing his title as Professor Dr John Yudkin, Chair of Nutrition, University of London in front. He was so humble. That was why earned so much respect from the academia, the British society, and around the world especially on his work on sugar and heart disease.
A lot of my other very eminent professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), at Reading, Oxford and at Cambridge Universities also taught me. They were all very humble. The greater they were, the humbler they were. In fact, the humbler they are, the greater respect they earn from society.
Today, the historical legacy of Yudkin's QEC program lives on through highly specialized postgraduate paths. For example, University College London (UCL), which integrated much of the historic London medical colleges, specifically offers an MSc in Clinical and Public Health Nutrition. This program includes observation clinics at University College London Hospital, teaching graduates how to handle malnutrition, eating disorders, and metabolic diseases directly within a clinical framework.
Practitioners of other alternative or complementary systems of medicine are also increasingly referred to as clinicians as they too examine patients and do clinical work. They too are clinicians if they meet specific professional benchmarks. For example:
Regulated Naturopathic Doctors (NDs): In jurisdictions like California or Ontario, UK, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore licensed Naturopathic Doctors complete an accredited four-year graduate program, pass national board exams, and maintain a state-regulated license. They operate as primary care clinicians who diagnose diseases, order lab tests, and prescribe medications.
Licensed Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Practitioners: In countries where TCM is regulated and integrated into the national healthcare infrastructure (such as China or parts of Southeast Asia including in Malaysia), practitioners undergo formal medical training and run active hospital or clinic-based practices. They are all licensed by the Ministry of Health.
Functional and Integrative Medicine Doctors: These are conventional medical doctors (MDs or DOs) who have undergone additional training to use holistic and alternative modalities alongside standard therapies. They are universally recognized as clinicians.
Doctors in hospitals normally do not do this routine clinical work. They spend at most 30 minutes examining a patient, requesting for diagnostic tests and prescribing the medicine, but most of their time are spent writing and clerking notes, and notes, files of them about their patients. That’s not much of a clinical work. They are merely writing note and clerking cases.
Hence, nurses or nurse clinician, and other healthcare workers are more clinicians than the doctor. The word 'clinician' merely describes the nature of the work they do most of the time It is not a profession, but just a job description such as any person who drives a car is called a motorist, a person who rides a bicycle, a cyclist, a person who plays the violin, a violinist, a person who plays the piano, a pianist, a person who tends to his garden, a gardener, an expert in nutrition, a nutritionist, a chemist who analyses a compound, an analytical chemist, someone who looks through a microscope, a microscopist, someone who sings, a singer...and so on and on, and on.
A medical doctor can call himself or herself a doctor they wish as long as they remain active in medical practice. But if he / she goes into business, then he or she is no longer a doctor, but a businessman or a businesswomen. Same thing if a nurse or a physiotherapy changes job then he or she is no longer one - but something else to fit his or her job description. Same for anyone who has retired from any profession - he / she is just a retiree.
For instance, I like to look at the galaxies through a telescope. You may call me an astronomer if you wish. After all I still did my postdoctoral in astronomy from the University of Oxford, whether or not I looked through a telescope. You may also call me an Evolutionary Biologist, or a Forensic Toxicologist. I studied these too after my PhD at the University of Cambridge and also worked as one at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
So, the job description is based on what we do. A doctor or anyone who does clinical work is a clinician, not necessarily confined to a doctor although normally people associate a clinician as a medical doctor.
But now we get dentists, pharmacists, drug sales people, nurses, bomohs, soothsayers, witch hunters, traditional healers, fortune tellers and all kinds of Dick Tom and Harry who also like to be addressed as "doctors" However, all healthcare professionals like physiotherapists, pharmacists, dieticians, nurses..etc are all technically clinicians because they deal directly and clinically with patient care.
If you are a Malay surgeon working in a government hospital here in Malaysia he will get angry if you address him as Encik instead of Mr, because surgeons working in a government hospital are always addressed as Mr. But the word for Mr. in Malay language is Encik. But no, they want to be addressed as Mr, not Encik? Maybe they want to distinguish themselves from all other Enciks? What a name and fantasy?
But once a Mr. surgeon who works in a government hospital goes into private practice naturally he suddenly calls himself as a Dr surgeon for obvious commercial reasons. If he calls himself a Mister in private practice, he will not get any patient, unlike in a government hospital he gets paid, whether he was called a Dr or a Mr.
The origin of the word ‘doctor’ in ancient times actually means a Teacher, a Sage, a very wise and Learned Person. He is regarded as a Philosopher. Hence the name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).
But these days everyone with only a Bachelor’s degree wishes to be called a 'doctor' when academically, legally, and technically they are not eligible for this, except those who actually holds a Doctorate degree such as a PhD or a DSc. A DSc is almost impossible to get unless you are a Nobel Prize Laureate in Science or in Medicine.
But now we also get dentists, pharmacists, paramedics, medical technologists, nurses and pharmaceutical representatives with a bachelor’s degree or only a diploma or certificate who also call themselves as “doctors”. So do bomohs, witch hunters, traditional healers, and all kinds of Dick Tom and Harry who also like to be addressed as "doctors"
That's why I always tell them to write out very clearly all their university degrees behind their names instead of putting all those vain titles before their names for which they are not eligible when they only have a basic Bachelor’s degree or only a diploma. Any one can give and write any title before their names, but they hide their qualifications and degree titles behind their name
If they spell out their academic qualifications behind their names, we will immediately know who they are. We can instantly tell their educational status. So, why hide their educational qualifications but write 'doctor' before their names without wanting to reveal their degree credentials after their names?
What a rat race for titles when we are actually zoologically and scientifically classified as animals under these categories:
Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Mammalia, Order: Primates, Suborder: Haplorhini, Infraorder: Simiiformes, Family: Hominidae, Subfamily: Homininae, Tribe: Hominini, Genes: Homo, and Type Species: Homo sapiens (humans)
I am afraid I am unable to answer your question why that teacher you mentioned called himself a Professor and Doctor if he is not?
You may need to ask him yourself.
lim ju boo
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