In my limited experience in a primarily undergraduate, small private university context (I need an acronym of sorts, there’s too much going on) we mostly use doctor and professor interchangeably but:
my institution historically had many Master’s level faculty and so they are always referred to as professor
some faculty with PhDs prefer to be called doctor instead of professor, just to make the distinction
I get called all kinds of things by students: “doc”, my last name only, my first name only, “Mr.”, etc. I’m personally not offended by it, especially as I teach a lot of freshmen, but some of my colleagues are more sensitive about it.
In a professional setting (conference, seminar, panel, email, etc.) I like having “doctor” in the intro but after that I find it a bit weird.
This discussion brings to mind Harvard University dropping the “Master” in academic titles because of its slave history. For example, “House Master”, one in charge of a residential hall, will become known as faculty deans. However, the university said that it will not affect other uses of “master” in graduate degrees at the master’s level.
I understand the need for sensitivity. But one wonders where the lines are to be drawn.
I think it’s appropriate when emailing or perhaps meeting a PhD academic for the first time to address them as doctor. After that it depends on cultural preferences. Also appropriate when introducing a speaker in a non-academic context (in an academic context the doctorate is easily inferred from someone’s academic position), at least if they are speaking on something related to their field of expertise. Perhaps particularly important in the media, I agree with the blog posted on that.
I find in Christian circles that there are many people quite precious about being called doctor when their doctorate is honorary or otherwise of dubious quality - an interesting phenomenon. I also find that particularly in church circles people often overstate/upgrade the academic rank those (typically older men) they admire, whereas for my sympathies to evolution and/or my relative youth I find my genuine expertise tends to be downplayed.
PhDs have at least as much claim to the title Dr as MDs do - the MD is an historically late development. The (common) idea that MDs deserve the title ‘doctor’ more I find rather implausible, and even a bit offensive, outside of a health context.
The biggest “problem” that I ever had, was with a former student. She later became an instructor in our department, so she was now a colleague. She kept calling me “Doctor” instead of using a first name. I tried to persuade her to be less formal, but I guess that was psychologically difficult for her.