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I disagree with the use of doctor for anyone who hasn't completed medical school and their field's respective post-graduate training. I've seen the term watered down to the point that anyone tangentially related to a physician-led field uses the term. Chiropractors, nurse practitioner, administrators, etc. etc. It leads to confusion in patient populations. I've had patients in the ER tell me that their nurse practitioner was equivalent to me in temrs of training which is absolutely not the case. I finished 3,000 hours of clinical rotations by the end of med school and another 10,000 hours of training by the end of residency. Patients are lucky if an NP has 500 hours of clinicals before they're hired to provide "primary care". The training an optometrist has is specialized but not to the level of an opthalmologist so using the same term muddies the water and makes it difficult for people to discern the difference.