Your observation about practicing medicine being a "dark art" has a lot of merit. As such the idea applies to most if not all medical specialties and I strongly

Your observation about practicing medicine being a "dark art" has a lot of merit. As such the idea applies to most if not all medical specialties and I strongly suspect is no less true among science-based disciplines in general. In health care domains we desperately want to believe providers know precisely what they're doing. It's particularly vexing to find out that "facts" are surrounded by an intrinsic level of uncertainty. IOW whatever action a practitioner deems best in a given situation is a judgement call grounded in experience. Sure, that's bolstered by underlying science, systematic investigations and published reports, but still there's no escaping the probabilistic nature of knowledge in the fields of medicine. The provider you want to have is one who strives to do what's possible up to the limits of techniques and technology, and above all seeks to learn from every patient encounter.