How do you get a PhD in a field nobody else has a PhD in?

Question

Til about Dr David Clutton who’s the only person with PhD in Gin, however stupid that sounds.
How do you get a phd in a discipline where there’s no-one to grant you that phd? How was it done in the past?

In: Other

Answer 1

In my old epidemiology department, there was a 60-year-old lady who failed the qualifying exam 6 times. Instead of asking her to leave, they created a new type of PhD that only she would have. I don’t know if she ever finished it, she was on her 10th year last I checked.