"Dr." Cheryl Winter, DCN, FNP-BC/APRN, RDN

Our next noctor by the name of Cheryl Winter certainly has no qualms about presenting herself as a doctor to potential patients. "Dr." is not only in her website's domain name, but also festooned across the website from the header to the footer. It's not until one digs into the fine print and the "About" page, however, before realizing that things are not as they seem:

Yep, there we go! This noctor, in addition to being an FNP, has a "doctorate" in clinical (functional) nutrition, or DCN - another one of those clinically questionable degrees that can often be obtained online. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that the average person would expect that someone wearing a white coat and calling themselves a doctor to be a physician with an MD/DO and not some random Frankenstein combination of an FNP and DCN. But of course, us physicians know that nowadays, only posers still wear white coats while real doctors are the ones were Patagonia and Arc'teryx fleece. I digress.

Also, has anyone noticed that noctors prefer to call themselves Dr. First Name? It's almost as if they realize that if they were to go all the way with the charade by calling themselves Dr. Last Name, they would be committing a huge ethical sin, so they settle for Dr. First Name as a sort of moral compromise. I've noticed in particular that nurse practitioner noctors (like this one) love to do this. It's almost like they're trying to tell their patients, "I'm a doctor, but not really!"