The Usage Of The Term Doctor

Recently, a person who had to make an appointment for my mother to get an X-Ray taken, rolled in her name with a prefix 'Dr.' Well, going by the factual, she has every right to add that prefix and her name does follow with the suffix 'PhD.,' while she has been a Professor teaching English literature for almost 45 years now.
The fun started when I drove her for getting that X-Ray... By the 15 minutes we took to get there, the gate was kept open and we even managed to get a royal salute from the guard; the reserved parking space next to the Radiologist's personal parking space, today, was kept vacant for our car to be parked and I even got support from the hospital staff to reverse (a couple of times) while parking the simple car we drove with incomprehensible patience witnessed among those that helped that was beyond belief. The reception was unusually warm and we got escorted straight to the mouth of the X-Ray room while our file was carried by a Nurse and even for the few seconds we had to wait, we got to sit in the Chief's cabin to stare at his grandchildren's scribblings and drawings that seemed to convey the love they had for him from a distant land - declared and decorating the radiating cabin's walls. This entire experience was like flying super V.I.P class. I never knew my mother was sooooo famous...
That was until... she got the X-Ray done and came out and we met the Chief of the hospital/lab face to face. The moment he saw my mom, he jumped off his seat - recognizing her with a question, "When did you become a 'Doctor'?!" and my mom coolly replied, 'When the university awarded me the PhD.,' - that being something he could not deny. That was a moment of settling an undebated debate without a debate over the usage of the word 'Doctor'.

The word 'Doctor', is derived from Latin, much like its verb forms - 'Indoctrinate' or 'Endoctrinate' (as earlier used during the Renaissance), which simply mean 'to teach' - referring more to a teacher who attempts to imbibe an idea or a concept among a group (of students/learners) than a practitioner of medicine who saves lives.
The word 'Professor' which is also a Latin word is derived from the French word 'Professeur', which means 'one who teaches a branch of knowledge'.
Usually, the word 'Doctor' in the academia is used to refer to a person who is engaged in research and learning - who perhaps has more validity to profess what s/he believes in that s/he later indoctrinates to an audience.

The academia and the medical profession seem to be locking horns for long over who should be using the word 'Doctor'. This tug of war will reach no end as going by populous usage when someone calls for a 'Doctor' during a medical emergency one does not expect a (stereo'typically') spectacled (wo)man carrying a bundle of books well-versed in astronomy or dramatics make a spectacular entry to attend to the person who needs medical care. That now is a possibility imagined in a popular situation in the presence of a populous crowd who we often deem redeemed of sense and sensibility; yet, that is a very common opinion built upon presumptions of who a doctor should be.

Today, every Tom, Dick and Harry wants his/her share over the right to use this word - including the physiotherapist, the dentist, the occupational therapist, the quack who punctures everyone's body with needles and the other one who strips to rip you claiming to massage those freshly crushed herbs mixed with oil in the pretext of magically curing everyone and even our local barber who trims and cuts hair who dabs the diluted cologne to fix the cuts and undercuts and the fellow from the over-rated spa who gives a pedicure and manicure to scrub the corn and crack... to every other despot with little understanding of the context or the usage of words who claim the title and the right to use the prefix 'Dr.' to find shelter in the shadows of the prestige it brings without being one bit worthy of to begin with.
While some in this group have decided not to wait for the verdict and have started to liberally lavish themselves with the title and shamelessly announcing it in their quackier places of practice from visiting cards to door plates to floor mats, the academician and the medical professional - who have found straighter paths to acclaim this right - may perhaps someday consider this to be a case fit for a good round of laughter and nothing more when they meet.

Technically, the word 'Doctor' was meant to fill in when referring to a 'Teacher'. Nowadays, more so, since collegiate education bodies and decision making authorities in the field of higher education, consider it mandatory to not just qualify in an eligibility test like NET yet also to have a PhD to be teaching in the first place. As some believe, including Socrates, Aristotle and other educated-kinds, that majority can be wrong and need not be right, (almost all the time), we can still decide who to refer to as a 'Doctor' and indoctrinate the other.

In today's scenario, the medical professional who insists on using the word 'Doctor' has resolved to use 'Dr.' as a prefix while adding a suffix 'Med' within brackets while an academician using the prefix 'Dr.' adds the suffix 'PhD.,' to mitigate confusion.

Hail the Doctor!