Doctor’s Wife Syndrome

Doctor’s Wife Syndrome

Social medicine The subtle air of superiority in interactions with her peers that a woman acquires when she marries a doctor—or other well-paid professional—and in so doing moves from the rank of the lower middle class in which she was raised to the upper middle class rank of medical doctors in North America, in terms of wealth and prestige in the community. The syndrome was once common in German-speaking countries, where wives of medical professionals were anointed with the title-by-marriage of Frau Doktor X
Vox populi A ‘syndrome’ that affects wives who, having worked hard and paid for their husbands’ medical school, lose them to divorce when they ‘upgrade’ to a younger, more attractive, or more educated partner