According to the March 10, 2008 issue of C&EN, a number of US PhD scientists working at Max Planck are facing charges for illegal use of the title “Dr.” According to the article, the title Dr is reserved for graduates of EU universities. From C&EN-
According to German criminal law, the title “Dr.” is reserved only for individuals who received a doctoral degree from a European Union institution, explains Erik Kraatz, a criminal lawyer at the Free University, Berlin. Kraatz notes that the law also prohibits masquerading as a police officer, medical doctor, or professor.
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 consent, they can use the title “Dr.” anywhere in the country. But without the state’s permission to use the title, a scientist breaks two laws: the state law requiring approval to use the “Dr.” title and the federal impersonation law, Kraatz says.
Breaking the state law is punishable with a fine akin to that associated with a traffic ticket. However, breaking the federal law is punishable by a larger fine or up to one year in jail, Kraatz adds.
This is a very hard-core, nanny-state policy to apply to an honorific. Golly. To avoid trouble with Interpol, I’ll make sure to change my business cards and my email lest I be mistaken for a physician wannabe. Heavens. We don’t want that. \;-)
Hopefully someone in the German legislature will propose a reform for this ridiculous law.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
Shows you how selfimportant german scientists are 😉 Also in Germany the Dr. becomes part of your name when you earn it. So really it is a lot more than an honorific.
As much as I enjoy bashing US science I have to say that the German “Doktors” trained in chemistry are usually mediocre when compared to US scientists. I like Germans, but recognize their training is course heavy and light on such basic skills as compound characterization. Many of the Germans I’ve known had never even used an NMR! Technicians operate the machines at many institutes.
Noted that they were all on sponsored fellowships by their government. If only the US government sponsored more than the top 10%! But I guess it’s cheaper to print a temp visa and let the German taxpayers do the heavy lifting.
I think I’ll pick another hill to die on.
On the other hand, since the German chemistry training is so course heavy, I have found that they are normally able to answer questions of the type “which sort of cross-coupling would work best for this substrate”. Better so than most other nationalities I’ve worked with.
The German legacy in chemistry is so deep that any US research group is better off for having German-trained scientists around. I would argue that differences between scientists around the world largely result from style and may have more to do with how their institutions work.
Chris-I spent a year in Erlangen with Paul Schleyer’s group. The students there had a very good, broad grounding in experimental chemistry. I’d be careful before making general statments.
I started earlier to write that in 1986 when I was there it was well known that if you wanted to stay you had to have your thesis work and course work checked by the authorities to verify it met the quality that was expected in Germany.
The C&EN article implied that this was some big surprise – I doubt it. Those guys knew this could come up any time – they just hoped that everyone would be to busy to notice.
This is exactly the kind of problem that I would have. My well known aversion to authority would betray me. I would be carted away to some dank Saxon prison to serve time working in the prison laundry pressing doilies for the warden’s spinster auntie.