‘On The Couch’ With Jasminda:

DEAR Jasminda,

I am a Doctor of Philosophy. When my husband and I recently travelled interstate, he put my title down as Doctor for our booking. I was unaware of this until the boarding staff greeted me as Doctor Ronstad, wishing me a good flight and thanking me for being on board. I was also moved to a better seat, offered more wine than other passengers, and generally treated like a person of substance for the first time in my flying life. Should I continue to use this title in the future?

G. Ronstad.

Dear Dr Ronstad,

May I call you that?

The title of doctor brings with it certain expectations.

Though I am not discounting the many years of study involved in attaining your Doctorate of Philosophy, there is a level of presumption involved when there is a doctor on board a flight.

Flight attendants receive extensive training, making mental notes of who is boarding the plane.

They keep their eye out for strapping young men (or women) who will be helpful in an emergency; anxious flyers, who will want to jump out of the plane during periods of turbulence; the elderly and infirm, who may require additional assistance; the sporting teams, who want to get out of their seats at regular intervals.

They also look out for medical practitioners, who may be particularly useful during a mid-flight emergency.

That is the category, Dr Ronstad, that the attendants put you in. They greeted you with enthusiasm and gave you extra attention because they knew they would be able to call on you if Mary Smith in row three had a stroke, or Peter Howard in row 22 knocked himself out while trying to get his bag out of the overhead locker.

As you would know, Dr Ronstad, the doctoral requirement for original research means that PhD subject matter is increasingly obscure, and though important in certain contexts, it has limited applicability to most situations (including life or death ones).

It also has limited social cache at dinner parties, where you will be asked about your research topic by well-meaning types with the query quickly followed by a glazed expression and a polite conversational segue, like, ‘Is that a cob loaf?’, but I digress.

A quick review of some recent doctoral theses highlights the issue.

While no doubt of great interest to the author, ‘An ideotype of a short-season, late-sown wheat for a changing Australian climate’ or ‘A Kauwhau Whakapapa Reading of Genesis 49:1-50:14’, or ‘Molecular insights into oyster neuroendocrine control of gonal maturation’, are areas of analysis that are not going to help when you are escorted out of your seat to deliver an onboard tracheostomy using nothing more than a wooden fork, a drop-down oxygen mask and some hand sanitiser.

For this reason, Dr Ronstad, may I suggest that your husband puts you down as plain old Mrs Ronstad for future flights.

Though it doesn’t carry the same level of prestige, you will be able to enjoy your flight, relaxed in the knowledge that you have not been misidentified as a medical expert.

Instead, you will have hours to ponder new research questions.

Perhaps you could make preliminary notes as to why interstate flights offer Beef Rendang as the only lunch option on a plane with 485 passengers and two toilets?

That question certainly kept me occupied (along with both toilets) on my last flight.

Carpe diem,

Jasminda.