Chapter 2: The Professional Practice Doctorate

Doctorates for people who plan to practice a particular profession have been around for about a thousand years. In the Middle Ages the emerging universities of Western Europe created doctorates in law and medicine. And, while the nature of these two degrees has changed drastically over the intervening centuries, the Juris Doctor (JD) and the doctor of medicine (MD) have been around in their present form for at least a hundred years. These degrees differ considerably from the PhD degree discussed in some detail in Chapter 1. The PhD degree, and program of study, was created specifically for students who would become academics and researchers. From the beginning it was to be a “research degree.”