Extending user model with different profiles

Question

I have an application where the amount of users logging in to system will be not more than 10 or 15. I have two type of users - a frontdesk user and a doctor type. Both of them have some common fields and some unique ones. For e.g a doctor might have a field like cardio or pediatrician, etc. The django recommended way of extending user model, does authenticate one type of users only I think. Would making a Doctor model with a OneToOneField be an accepted way to implement this?

class Doctor(models.Model):
    #doctor specific fields
    user = models.OneToOneField(User)

class FrontDesk(models.Model):
    #frontdesk specific fields
    user = models.OneToOneField(User)

And for frontdesk the same way?

I am using django 1.5. Django user model also uses username for returning value in the __unicode__ function. I want the user to be able to see the name of the doctor. So the built-in functionality isn't OK for me. What would you suggest?

Answer 1

I don't think there will be any problem with what you are doing.

You can define the unicode function to return the username of doctor or frontdesk user in this way:

def __unicode__(self):
    return self.user.username

Answer 2

why not combine them with abstract:

class CommonCustomer(models.Model):
user = models.OneToOneField(User)
    #all common fields
    class Meta:
        abstract = True

class Doctor(CommonCustomer):
    #doctor specific fields
    docid = models.CharField(max_length=32)

class FrontDesk(CommonCustomer):
    #frontdesk specific fields
    fdid = models.CharField(max_length=32)