History Main / NotThatKindOfDoctor

* Franchise/PowerRangers actor Jason Narvy has a PhD in Theater Studies, gotten long after his tenure in the ''[[Franchise/PowerRangers Power Rangers Franchise]]'', in 2010. The very next year, he started ''teaching'' theater in Chicago through 2021 at Concordia University.

* ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'':

** He mentions that the last surgery he performed was lancing a boil on his kid's butt.

* In ''Tomcats'' Michael and Kyle go to see their friend, a doctor, for a growth on one of Kyle's testicles. The friend points out that while he is a M.D., he is a proctologist and not a urologist. Although they do go to see an actual urologist, Michael still feels the need to say:

* The [[Franchise/TheDCU female Dr. Light]] started out as Not That Kind Of Doctor, being an astrophysicist. Then, she was later shown as That Kind of Doctor, working in a hospital and healing a fellow hero. Thus began her upgrade to OmnidisciplinaryScientist...
* Comicbook/DoctorStrange, from the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, is a trained (though not currently practicing) surgeon. Specifically, he was a neurosurgeon, but an accident left his hands unable to hold a scalpel steady enough to do the fine manipulation necessary for such delicate surgery. On the occasions when he does show his medical chops, he tends to be [[SuperDoc better and more versatile]] than a specialist decades out of practice should be, though he'll usually quip that he hasn't been ''that'' kind of doctor for a long time.
** The [[Film/DoctorStrange2016 movie version]] actually has multiple [=Ph.D.=] and M.D. degrees.
* His parody in ''ComicBook/{{Fanhunter}}'', Dr. X-Traño (a mix between a real wizard and a cosplayer Marvel geek), is only ''honoris causa''[[note]]indicates an honorary degree[[/note]] of something else by Miskatonic University. His allies believed X-Traño to be an M.D. like Strange; he was forced to tell the truth when he was asked to heal an ally.
* Inverted with the Night Nurse, who is actually a licensed physician but prefers the catchy codename to "Night General Practitioner".
* LampshadeHanging in ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'', when Black Canary is surprised that Dr. Mid-Nite ''is'' that kind of doctor, since most supers who call themselves "Dr" aren't.
** It seems a little odd for Black Canary to think this, since in the DC Universe it may be true for super''villains'', but most superheroes who use the "Dr" title ''are'' physicians. Dr. Manhattan is NotThatKindOfDoctor (doctorate in physics), but he is/was explicitly not part of the mainstream DC Universe and Black Canary shouldn't know about him. Dr. Fate ''used to be'' NotThatKindOfDoctor (doctorate in archaeology/Egyptology), but ended up becoming a physician anyway. Dr. Light (the heroic female version, not Arthur Light) ''used to be'' NotThatKindOfDoctor (doctorate in astronomy), but has also since become a physician.
* In ''Saga of the ComicBook/SwampThing'' #9, Dr. Dennis Barclay says that the Swamp Thing needs a botanist or a biochemist, not a medical doctor like himself.
* During the ''Sunshine & Roses'' arc of ''Comicbook/StrayBullets'', Orson kidnaps a surgeon to help revive Annie after a blow to the head renders her unconscious. During the car ride over, the doctor explains that he's a reconstructive surgeon who mainly does cosmetic procedures, and thus knows nothing about treating traumatic brain injuries.
* ''{{ComicBook/Crossed}}'': One arc features a bunch of millionaires hidden away in a luxurious bunker. The closest they have to a medical expert is a dermatologist who got rich off a brand of skin cream she invented; when one of the others gets appendicitis she operates on him, and predictably, he dies.
* ''ComicBook/TheSensationalSheHulk'': Reed Richards informs Jen that she is losing her powers in issue #52. She desperately begs him to come up with a cure and he responds that this is a medical and biochemical issue which falls outside his area of expertise. What is unusual about this trope is that Reed is an OmnidisciplinaryScientist which She-Hulk lampshades.
-->'''Jen''': Oh sure... You can build moon rockets in your backyard and shrink people to sub-atomic size in your sleep, but you can't deal with a simple blood disorder?
* ComicBook/{{Morbius}} has an [=M.D.=] and at least one [=PhD=], so he is actually both kind of doctors. As an [=M.D.=] he specializes in hematology, but exactly what the [=Ph.D.s=] are in [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the writer]], with biology and biochemistry being the fields most commonly mentioned.
* In Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #7, Dr. Octopus is asked to help an injured ally; he specifies he's a nuclear physicist, not an M.D. Also, he doesn't particularly care for the injured person.

* A [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Nursing_Practice Doctor of Nursing Practice]] has a doctorate (the DNP), and is thus entitled to be addressed as "Doctor". However, they are required by law to make sure that patients in a clinical setting know they are NotThatKindOfDoctor. Other states flatly prohibit [=DNPs=] from using the title "Doctor" with their patients in a clinical setting.

* Doctor Doom dropped out of school after his FreakLabAccident and then proceeded to learn magic and take over a country. He never actually finished his Doctorate. No one would argue that he doesn't deserve one, but he simply never finished the coursework. Ordering the [[{{Ruritania}} University of Latveria]] to give him a degree (what the fanon suggests he did) doesn't count, even though the thesis defense would have been...interesting.
* ComicBook/SpiderMan's foe [[ComicBook/DoctorOctopus Dr. Octopus]] has a doctorate in nuclear physics.
** Lampshaded in ''ComicBook/SecretWars1984'': Volcana asks Doctor Octopus to tend to the severely wounded Molecule Man; Octopus replies that he's a nuclear physicist and not an MD, though he manages some basic stitches.
*** Conversely, every doctorate brings full knowledge of robotics, including the Entomology course (see Henry Pym).
** Also appears in ''Comicbook/UltimateSpiderMan''. Peter is injured in a fight and goes to Dr. Connors for help. Although he isn't an MD, as he is quick to point out, he is persuaded to treat the wound anyway.
* ''ComicBook/NthManTheUltimateNinja'' features Irving Yagyu, DDS (Doctor of Dental Surgery). He's called "the ninja dentist" because [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin that's exactly what he is...]]
* The original Comicbook/DoctorFate was a doctor of archaeology and actually did earn a medical license at once point. Most of the subsequent Doctor Fates weren't doctors at all, they'd just [[LegacyCharacter inherited the name]]. That said, one of them was a psychoanalyst, while another was a medical student.
** The trope name is spoken word for word in ''ComicBook/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'' when Harley Quinn is trying to save a [[ItMakesSenseInContext talking chimp]] and asks him for help. Harley, who actually ''did'' [[GeniusDitz go to medical school]], then tells ''Mister'' Fate to take the chimp's human friend out of the room while she starts to work on him. The fact that Harley got her degree in ''psychiatry'' through blackmail is lost on her, of course.
* According to the fact file at the back of the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' comic, even though Dr. Cyber is an OmnidisciplinaryScientist, her actual doctorate is in literature.
* ''ComicBook/IronMan:'' Tony Stark actually does have a doctorate, but he almost never brings it up anyway. Mercifully, his teammates in the Avengers never ask him to be That Kind of Doctor either.
* One-shot {{Franchise/Justice League|Of America}} foe [[RealityWarper Dr Julian September]] is a physicist. He is not mistaken for a doctor of medicine, but an official who doesn't want to reapprove of his funding makes a quip about September fixing his jeep, since he works in quantum ''mechanics''. Shortly after, Dr September's work first paid off, when the official was [[RealityWarper struck by lightning]] before he could sign the paper that would have stopped September's work.
* Brother Voodoo (Dr. Jericho Drumm) is a psychologist. Some readers assumed when they saw him go by 'Doctor Voodoo' that the title had come along with the office of Sorcerer Supreme, which he inherited from Doctor Strange.
* Dr. John Henry Irons, aka the third Comicbook/{{Steel}}, is an engineer. The issue comes up when he visits a hospital on whether it's appropriate to call him "Dr. Irons". In Christopher Priest's run, he ''works'' at a hospital, and to his embarrassment, the administrator says calling him "Dr. Irons" is good publicity.

* ''Film/HarbingerDown'': When a student wants to sneak down to the hold to catch a look at the HumanPopsicle they've taken from the ice, she has a crewman distract her JerkAss professor by asking for advice on his psychological issues. The professor explains he's NotThatKindOfDoctor, but he has studied the theory in college, and so being a KnowNothingKnowItAll can't resist giving his opinion anyway. GilliganCut to the crewman [[INeedAFreakingDrink finding the bottom of a bottle of vodka]] as the professor rambles on, until he gets too drunk to keep up the facade.

* In the main ''Franchise/MegaMan'' timeline (and nearly all fan works), being a "Doctor" doesn't invariably mean you're a medical doctor...instead, it invariably means you build robots. Notably, it means you build robots ''even if you have a doctorate in something else''. Dr. Cain, for instance, has a background in archaeology and botany, and still invented reploids. Which may well explain their tendency to go crazy and try to take over and/or destroy the world.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', Beth is a horse doctor. In one episode, she and Jerry hit a deer, and when she expresses a wish that she had the equipment to try and save its life, he tries to comfort her by saying that, since she deals with horses, there was nothing that she could do anyway. Beth, naturally, takes that as an insult and spends the rest of the episode ''angrily'' determined to save the deer.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTimeFionnaAndCake'': When it's revealed that Little Destiny is sick, Fionna asks Simon to help, since he's a doctor. Simon responds that he's an antiquarian.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTimeFionnaAndCake'': When it's revealed that Little Desiny is sick, Fionna tells asks Simon to help, since he's a doctor. Simon responds by saying that he's an antiquarian.

This trope stems from a modern convention: in the past, "Doctor" had a purely academic connotation -- the word itself derives from the Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher", meaning that the title-holder is licensed to lecture at a university on the subject they have a Doctorate in. Later, the meaning of the word ''Doctor'' narrowed down to mean that the holder has a doctorate degree: M.D. = ''Medicinæ Doctor'' (Doctor of Medicine), or [=Ph.D.=] = ''Philosophiæ Doctor'' (Doctor of Philosophy). At some point, the word (in English, at least) began to shift from being the title of a learned person/a person with a doctorate to meaning the same as "physician". Originally, the M.D. was a doctorate in medicine, but in some places, like the US and Canada, it became the first professional degree. (In the UK and Ireland bachelor of medicine & surgery — primarily abbreviated as MB [=ChB=], though it can vary depending on university — are the first ''undergraduate'' degrees; holders are addressed as "Doctor" regardless. Meanwhile, surgeons — which require a graduate degree, equivalent to a North American M.D. in length of education — are only addressed in honorfics in a form of reverse snobbery.)[[note]]Historically, being a doctor (the equivalent to GP today) was considered a more upper-class career than surgery, as they do not have to get their hands dirty. Most surgeons were simply working-class barbers. This was in fact the origin of the iconic barber's pole, which [[OlderThanTheyThink dates back to medieval times]]; the red stripe represents bloody bandages, with the blue stripe being a much more recent addition that began in the United States (due to the national colors) and has spread from there. However when the modern era rolled around and surgery become a more specialized and prestigious line of work than ''mere'' doctoring, the surgeons refused the title of Doctor as a sort of passive-aggressive middle-finger to the snobs who denied them the title 300-ish years previously.[[/note]] It is easy to see how the term "doctor" was slowly divorced from its academic roots. This has gone so far that it is common for it to be thought that "real" doctors are physicians... which brings us to this trope. And MDEnvy to boot.

* Music/DrDre is a former member of Music/{{NWA}} with "Dr" in his rap name, and does not actually have a doctorate. However, Music/{{Eminem}}&mdas; whose Slim Shady persona is an AxCrazy MunchausenSyndrome victim with an unspecific mental disorder- ''loves'' to cast Dre as Slim's medical doctor, usually his psychiatrist. Fittingly, since he's just a music producer, he's rarely very helpful.

* Captain Holt tries to use this to his advantage in an episode of ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'', trying to get under the skin of a murder suspect, a dentist, by saying he's not a real doctor. The dentist isn't impressed, and retorts that it's better than university professors calling themselves doctors. Holt, who is both married to a university professor and a stickler for details, takes this very seriously.

'''Peralta:''' OK, Captain --\\
'''Holt:''' I know we live in a world where anything can mean anything, and NOBODY EVEN CARES ABOUT ETYMOLO -- ''[cut to them outside]'' Apparently, that's a trigger for me.

* ''Series/{{Arrowverse}}'':

** Played for laughs in ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' when Mick starts [[spoiler: hallucinating (we think) the dead Snart.]]

* In the third ''Literature/{{Spaceforce}}'' novel, Jez and Andri investigate a troubling accidental death and find that pretty much everyone involved, victim and suspects, is a doctor - but only two are 'that' kind of doctor.

* In Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses fourth year anniversary, ''WebVideo/ToBoldlyFlee'', Sad Panda is named the ship's doctor.

* Comicbook/DoctorStrange, from the MarvelUniverse, is a trained (though not currently practicing) surgeon. Specifically, he was a neurosurgeon, but an accident left his hands unable to hold a scalpel steady enough to do the fine manipulation necessary for such delicate surgery. On the occasions when he does show his medical chops, he tends to be [[SuperDoc better and more versatile]] than a specialist decades out of practice should be, though he'll usually quip that he hasn't been ''that'' kind of doctor for a long time.