Call these doctors by their calling

Physicians with names unique to medicine say they -- and patients -- have a good sense of humor about the whole thing.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Jan. 21, 2008.

After patients get a vasectomy at this practice, they walk away, albeit gingerly, with a T-shirt to mark the occasion.

"I was 'chopped' at the Urology Team," it proclaims on the back.

Both procedure and shirt come courtesy of Richard "Dick" Chopp, MD, of the Urology Team practice in Austin, Texas. The name is real, the doctor is real. And he's in on the joke.

"My patients call me Dick Chopp. They say, 'How did you get that name?' 'I say, 'It's mainly divine intervention.' "

During medical school or in practice, perhaps at a conference, you've heard or joked about some unlikely doctor monikers. Dr. Cure. Dr. Bones. Dr. Love. Dr. Butts. Dr. Butcher. Dr. Pepper.

Some are doctors whose names match their specialty. And these real McCoys say having a name unique to medicine is an icebreaker, gives patients a dose of levity, creates local recognition and helps the doctors keep their own sense of humor.

"It's always been fun for me. Everybody wishes they had my name," Dr. Chopp said.

But being called Looney wasn't much joy for John Looney, MD, when he was a boy in small-town Texas. When schoolchildren mocked him, he wouldn't take any guff.

"I was a boy named Sue. I'd fight you at the drop of a hat," he said.

Today, Dr. Looney is a psychiatrist who specializes in adolescent psychiatry. He usually doesn't hear wisecracks from his young patients. They share them with their parents before they see him. "They say, 'I ain't going to see a psychiatrist named Looney,' " said the professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.