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They're just people working jobs and in what's become a pretty troubled industry. For reasonably smart, reasonably disciplined people, going to med school and

They're just people working jobs and in what's become a pretty troubled industry. For reasonably smart, reasonably disciplined people, going to med school and getting licensed is not some transformative experience that forces them all to become brilliant diagnosticians and healers. It's just a bit of a long grind to score what's hoped to be a well-paying and traditionally respected job. And then once you finish that grind and have the job, you still need to balance it with a regular old life of resposinilities and crises and kids and vacations; and in fact, because of the grind many people necessarily shift their personal and mental focus towards those other things. Meanwhile, the job sucks in a lot of ways and doesn't deliver on the childhood fantasies of what it must be like. Colleages and administrators make it miserable quite often, and patiets sure do too. The upshot is that no: many doctors are not all that brilliant and attentive to start with, and many who may sometimes be so are slackers. Shortcuts win, knowledge outside routine/common stuff fades, etc Just like all jobs. It's great when you can find the diamond in the rough for your own care, but don't assume they're all diamonds just because they went to med school for a while.

mindslight 2y ago
The pisser is that doctors mostly continue to act authoritative rather than collaborative. Regardless of how much education one has received, someone that spends a total of 20 minutes thinking about something (starting from a context without specific details) really should not be sitting there asserting one prescriptive take-it-or-leave-it answer like they've got the whole situation all figured out. Rather they should be engaging with questions to explain their reasoning and inform you of the larger context, since your health decisions are ultimately your own responsibility to make, especially in this brave new world of the "nobody's fault" medical system.
tightbookkeeper 2y ago
A girl next to me on the plane was studying for med school interviews. I tried to imagine what questions they might ask, I looked over and the first question on her sheet was “why do you want to be a doctor. This is not an intellectual interview, it’s a class and commitment signaling exercise.

mindslight 2y ago

The pisser is that doctors mostly continue to act authoritative rather than collaborative. Regardless of how much education one has received, someone that spends a total of 20 minutes thinking about something (starting from a context without specific details) really should not be sitting there asserting one prescriptive take-it-or-leave-it answer like they've got the whole situation all figured out. Rather they should be engaging with questions to explain their reasoning and inform you of the larger context, since your health decisions are ultimately your own responsibility to make, especially in this brave new world of the "nobody's fault" medical system.

tightbookkeeper 2y ago

A girl next to me on the plane was studying for med school interviews. I tried to imagine what questions they might ask, I looked over and the first question on her sheet was “why do you want to be a doctor. This is not an intellectual interview, it’s a class and commitment signaling exercise.