Changing title on passport

Ha! This is the only reason I'm doing it. Saw the tip on Moneysavingexpert a few weeks ago!

My thought process:

Ooh you don't need proof and you get free upgrades, great! I'll do that when I change my name, just put Dr on the form... who would know?

Free champagne on a flight, great seats... sudden life or death medical emergency... they think I am a Dr... they call on me... I have no idea what I'm doing...

Someone dies.

Better not.

I'd be as little use as you in a life or death situation! I always have it prepared in my head to say 'Nobody asked if I was a medical doctor' but that will just wind them up in their time of need!

When my best friend's doctorate came through and she changed her bank details she found her line of credit improved massively and they gave her a better rate on her loan and all sorts!

FTLOMB - do you have two names? A married name and a professional name?? I won't be graduating from my PhD til next year by which I'd be married but I'd really like to be a Dr in my maiden name as I'm the last one in the family. Can you shed any light at all?

I thought passports did not contain titles. Mine does not say Miss/Mrs/Ms.

No, I kept my maiden name for everything. A friend of mine uses Dr Married Name, where her PhD was awarded in her maiden name (before she married), and it hasn't caused any practical problems. Whether it's technically correct is another matter.

Saisi, you can add formal titles to passports. As you say, by default, a passport doesn't contain any title, not even Mr/Mrs/etc. As I understand, it is added to separate section (not sure where in the passport, maybe the main page), something like "This person goes by the title "Doctor" (or "Reverend" or whatever"). It's also where they distinguish between real names and common usage names (think of all those film stars who have stage names).

So, would I be able to add 'Kate' to my passport and keep it in 'Kathryn'?

The amount of times I've accidentally booked flights in Kate and had to get them changed...

Ah, this makes sense. My mum has this as her passport is in her married name, so she has a bit saying "Also known as Dr Maidenname". It's towards the back of the passport.

I guess so. But you'd need documents to,prove that you go by 'Kate'. I'm not sure what you might offer? Bank stuff?

Mine doesn't have dr on but it is about to expire. I'm not sure whether I'll have it on my new one, but think the whole process is going to get confusing, as am keeping my maiden name for work but going to be using my married name for personal/non-professional things, so changing my name and title might just overwhelm them (if they are anywhere near as useless as the DVLA),

Iris, for medics who graduated still with their maiden name, is it straightforward to change to Dr Married Name if you want? Do you have to reregister (or whatever) or can you just start using your new name?

You have to fill in a form and send it off to the GMC with your marriage certificate, and they sort it out for you within about two weeks. I didn't change my signature or my hospital ID until I'd had that confirmation back, but it was fairly straightforward. I think I'm in a minority among female doctors in having changed my name completely though. In my portfolio folder I put my marriage certificate straight after my degree certificates just in case anyone gets confused!

I changed my surname and put Dr on my passport at the same time. There's a page next to the photo page which says "The holder of this passport is Doctor Helen..." I don't think I had to send off any proof of my title.

As Helenia said I don't think it's too problematic in terms of the GMC but I have heard it can be complicated in terms of postgraduate exams/membership to the royal colleges, etc. I think in the long run it's easier to change everything to the one name, so I'm sure I'll be making life hard for myself. Whenever you take membership exams, etc you have to take ID. So if I take an exam after getting married, I'll have to take my photo id which will have my married name on and take a copy of the marriage certificate to prove I'm the same person. I can envisage things getting tricky!

Obvs I'm not a doctor but I always gave a copy if my marriage cert in my purse anyway,even for silly stuff like picking up parcels from post office.