“Doing their homework” means learning enough about a subject to be able to explain in details what they are seeing/feeling and understanding what the doctor has

“Doing their homework” means learning enough about a subject to be able to explain in details what they are seeing/feeling and understanding what the doctor has to say about it. It’s the difference between “my poo is weird” and “here’s my temperature during the last three days and each feces according to the Bristol scale”. A doctor just telling you to shove your observations in indecent places isn’t sparing anyone’s time. They might be missing the mark or unreliable, but that’s not what the parent was talking about. On patients that think they know what they need and won’t budge an inch, you’ll have them anyway. Recognizing and properly dealing with these cases is part of being a doctor. You won’t see many 6 yo kid naturally sold on getting intramuscular injections.