Scientists in Germany with U.S. Ph.D.s face charges for posing as 'Dr.'

C&E News reports:

At least seven U.S.-educated scientists working at the Max Planck Society's (MPS) prestigious research institutes in Germany have faced or are facing criminal charges for impersonating a "Dr." The maximum penalty for this crime is one year in jail.

According to documents examined by C&EN, the charges were issued by German officials because the scientists put the title "Dr." in front of their names on public documents, such as work-related websites. A German official tells C&EN that some of the charges were brought in response to a complaint filed by a foreign-educated German scientist.

"The whole situation is absurd," says Jonathan Gershenzon, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena. Gershenzon received his doctorate at the University of Texas, Austin. He was charged with impersonating a "Dr." by German officials in mid-January.

According to German criminal law, the title "Dr." is reserved only for individuals who received a doctoral degree from a German institution or an institution elsewhere in the European Union, explains Erik Kraatz, a criminal lawyer at the Free University, Berlin. Kraatz notes that the law also prohibits masquerading as a police officer, professor, consul, and medical doctor.

"I am not allowed to be publicly listed as 'Dr. Baldwin,' " says Ian T. Baldwin, another director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, who was also charged in January. "To obey the law, I must refer to myself as 'Ian Baldwin, Ph.D., Cornell University, Ithaca (NY)'."

Indeed, to legally use the title "Dr." in Germany, foreign-trained scientists must request permission from their local German state government. With this state-level approval, they would be allowed to use the title "Dr." before their name anywhere in the country. But without the state's permission to use the title, a scientist breaks two laws: the state law requiring permission to use the "Dr." title and a federal law about impersonating a doctor, Kraatz says.

ViaLRC Blog