Being a doctor gives you an understanding of some general medical principles. However, an individual doctor, no matter how talented, only has specific expertis

Being a doctor gives you an understanding of some general medical principles. However, an individual doctor, no matter how talented, only has specific expertise in her/his domain. Even worse it is very hard to be objective about your own illness, especially if it involves pain, the possibility of significant disability or the possibility of death. Over diagnosis, denial and mismanagement all can result from subjectivity. Thus an orthopaedic surgeon would be foolish to self-manage his hypertension. He needs a general practitioner or a cardiologist to look after that domain. A cardiologist would be foolish to look after his diabetes. He needs a general practitioner or an endocrinologist to look after that domain. A general practitioner would be foolish to self manage anything significant. He would need another general practitioner who could look at his problem objectively or an appropriate sub-specialist.