I’d assumed it was an M.D., because at the University of Chicago, where I’d done my degrees, there’s a kind of inverted snobbery about the title “doctor”: it’s only for M.D.s. Ph.D.s are Mr. or Ms., and they call you out pretty sharply if you violate the code.
Ha, ha! I spent a year at the University of Chicago, and this is TOTALLY true! We HAD to call all of our professors “Mr.” (I didn’t have any women professors), because it was always assumed that they ALL had Ph.D.s.
