Have you ever actually tried to do this? It is hard. A family friend, a very smart guy himself, was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Since I’m a ne

Have you ever actually tried to do this? It is hard. A family friend, a very smart guy himself, was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Since I’m a neuroscientist, he asked me for advice. I work on brain stimulation, one of the better treatments for Parkinson’s Disease. My institute is a Parkinson’s Centre of Excellence, and I collaborate with movement disorders specialists. I have easy access to experts and tons of relevant training and literature. Nevertheless, I found it very hard to make a recommendation, even between the options his doctor had laid out—-and I wasn’t even considering price, since he has excellent insurance. This decision was smack in the middle of my wheelhouse too; helping with, say, a decision about kidneys would have been even worse. There’s no way people, especially people in vulnerable situations, can reasonably be expected to catch up with experts that have a decade of advanced training and then second-guess them.