I'm trying to look at the AQF semantics and so on and it's doing my head in. So the change by University of Sydney (as well as a slew of others, as I've quickly read up) doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
It certainly doesn't do much to justify to me how one knows how to be eligible to be called a "Doctor" or not. Someone who had a MBBS (as I would know it) is supposedly a "Doctor", and in the sense that most people (lay people) know a doctor to be, i.e. they diagnose conditions in people, they are trained in the medical field, they have taken an oath to help people as best they can in that skill field.
Of course, my sister is a dentist, having completed a Bachelor of Dental Science (BDSc), and naturally she is called a "doctor".
Now my head is done in when we think of other "medical" people, such as surgeons, chiropractors, naturopaths, optometrists, and the whole gamut of specialists, "-ologists" and "-tricians" who practice on people.
Someone help? (Sorry for slight O/T...)
I don't buy the "real doctors" argument. Call me vain, perhaps, but the "doctor" qualification is simply a reflection of the person's achievement (which also calls to attention who should be addressed as such, given their qualification). I don't know if you would give your occupation as a "doctor" if your qualification is a Doctor of Philosophy (I wouldn't - that's confusing IMO - I prefer to say "Doctoral Graduate"), but I thought that's not what is being argued here.