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Marrisa Joseph finding her PhD and honorific ¡°Dr¡± routinely ignored or worse (¡°I have earned the right to be called ¡®Dr¡¯¡±, Opinion, 5 July) recalls the recent experiences of??and?, whose doctorate was reported to stick in the craw of some porters at King¡¯s College, Cambridge. It is a common problem.

As a man with a PhD, and in reply to Joseph¡¯s question, ¡°Do men with PhDs have to defend their doctorates?¡±, indeed, I have needed to defend my doctorate on occasion, particularly to fierce medical receptionists whose hackles rise at the idea that anyone but an MD deserves to be called ¡°Dr¡±. But some of them even smile when I follow mention of my honorific with the (privately sardonic) phrase ¡°but it¡¯s only a PhD¡±.

Paul G. Ellis
London

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