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[Iduno]

Ben Carson is my foremost proof that intelligence is compartmentalized. This is a man who fully pioneered neurosurgery, arguably was number one when he was practicing, and in literally every other area of life including things related to but not strictly necessary for neurosurgery he believes in nothing but magic and bullshit.

That, and the hidden curriculum that affects far too high of a percentage of doctors (luckily not all, but far too many).

hidden curriculum?

A well-documented thing where doctors are generally taught that they are superior, specialists are the only intelligent people, they can and should talk down to their inferiors, and patients (having the least medical knowledge) should be ignored.

[Naturegirl1999]

Ben Carson is my foremost proof that intelligence is compartmentalized. This is a man who fully pioneered neurosurgery, arguably was number one when he was practicing, and in literally every other area of life including things related to but not strictly necessary for neurosurgery he believes in nothing but magic and bullshit.

That, and the hidden curriculum that affects far too high of a percentage of doctors (luckily not all, but far too many).

hidden curriculum?

A well-documented thing where doctors are generally taught that they are superior, specialists are the only intelligent people, they can and should talk down to their inferiors, and patients (having the least medical knowledge) should be ignored.

wow. That’s unfortunate

[Kagus]

I can sort of understand why that might be a thing; the need for confidence in one's own abilities and an inner strength for decision-making when time is of the essence. A bit like the military, "any decision is better than no decision", and bringing doubt into the picture from what everyone around you is saying can seriously throw a wrench in that process.

The difficulty, as is also often the case with military folks, is that that kind of thinking doesn't exactly translate very well into non-life-threatening areas of life. But since it's supposed to be a mode you're just constantly in so you can react to sudden situations, you can't really shut it off on command. So you go around making decisions on things that don't really need decisions made, based off of your inner confidence on your ability to handle the situation, rather than any actual experience or knowledge.

[MrRoboto75]

To be fair the amount of soccer moms who believe they know more about kids health than docs do just because they shat out a precious child a few times probably would jade doctors a bit.

Or all those "ASK YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT ASSPILLS" advertisements on TV.

[Naturegirl1999]

To be fair the amount of soccer moms who believe they know more about kids health than docs do just because they shat out a precious child a few times probably would jade doctors a bit.

Or all those "ASK YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT ASSPILLS" advertisements on TV.

Yes, but they shouldn’t talk down to people just because they are lower rank

[Trekkin]

To be fair the amount of soccer moms who believe they know more about kids health than docs do just because they shat out a precious child a few times probably would jade doctors a bit.

Or all those "ASK YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT ASSPILLS" advertisements on TV.

Yes, but they shouldn’t talk down to people just because they are lower rank

This is true, but -- just to play devil's advocate for a moment -- there is some value when dealing with patients in assuming that they know nothing, because most people think they know more than they actually know so it's safest to assume the thing that results, in theory, in the fewest misinformed people. By itself, that isn't a bad way to teach, and it doesn't preclude politeness, but it is close enough to condescension to potentiate condescending doctors.

Then, too, people don't like acknowledging that there is relevant information they don't know or can't know, particularly if someone else does. It's almost a perspective-flipped Dunning-Kruger effect: the less someone knows, the less they believe is knowable. You might notice this in Trump's frequent claims that "maybe nobody knows" something that he can't recall, but you might also notice the same character traits in those Internet commenters who incessantly attribute any behavior they can't understand to the stupidity of their opponents.

Trying to teach people like that anything is supremely frustrating. It's like their awareness is metastable, and they'll seize the first chance they get to veer off into a pat explanation for everything so the mean smart person will stop calling them dumb. "It's all just" one thing more complicated than it all just was a moment ago, ad infinitum. Nobody "knows" anything to an arbitrary standard just a bit higher than what was just proven. And so on, and so forth. Now imagine having to tell them they're wrong about what's best for their child.

It's certainly suboptimal for doctors to condescend to their patients, but I think we can have some sympathy for them ultimately acting out of frustration.

[Il Palazzo]

So the 'hidden curriculum' is both hidden and well-documented? And from the description all it amounts to is the arcane idea that experts posses expertise?
I smell a conspiracy theory and a massive butt-hurt.

[Iduno]

So the 'hidden curriculum' is both hidden and well-documented? And from the description all it amounts to is the arcane idea that experts posses expertise?
I smell a conspiracy theory and a massive butt-hurt.

Hidden in that the teacher's plan doesn't say "now tell the students that only idiots practice general medicine, tomorrow tell them that they're better than everyone else."

Teaching attitudes and values is usually not outlined ahead of time (I know it was for engineers, but that's an outlier).

[scriver]

Let me share with you an anecdote from my own life.

I got pneumonia. It was pretty bad. We went to the doctor and they gave me antibiotics or whatever medicine one prescribes against lung inflammation.

A week or so later my brother falls ill. Same symptoms. It's not as bad yet. So my dad and brother go to doctor's and tell him "my other son is home with pneumonia and it started with the exact same symptoms". How do you think the doctor responds?

"It's not pneumonia, it's just a cold. Go home and take an achepill."

Of course, it's not a cold. Within a day or two my brother is just as bad as it was for me, 40+ degrees' fever and breaththroat clogged. He goes back to the health central and gets to see the same doctor.

"It's not pneumonia. He's just got a cold. I'm not prescribing medicine for you."

So yeah. My dad didn't go back home but demanded to see another doctor. Plot twist! Turns out my brother had pneumonia and needed medicine! Who would've guessed. Absolutely nobody could have seen that coming.

And that's the story of how my brother almost died because a doctor decided he wouldn't be told by a patient was was wrong even if a child had to die because of it.

[nenjin]

People seem to think doctors exist in some special realm uninhabited by regular humans. That they are either the one expert that can never be wrong, or the one expert that is never right. They're just people, with a lot more education in a complex discipline but still people. Sometimes they listen and are good at their jobs and knowledgeable and thoughtful, and sometimes they don't listen, aren't good at their jobs and aren't as knowledgeable or thoughtful about their patients situation. I'm sure they're trained that patients should not self-diagnose because that's dangerous for them, and that attitude sometimes blooms in to thinking their patients are stupid and should be treated as such when they don't agree with their diagnosis.

It's like when my mom hired a contractor to repair the front steps of her house. She walked up one day and saw the guide wall they were starting was tipping away from the house. She mentioned it to them and was told essentially "butt out, we're doing our job." Low and behold, when the steps were finished, the whole thing started to separate from the foundation wall, leaving a huge gap where it was supposed to be flush.

Really it's that no doctor ever wants to admit they were wrong. Diagnosis is an art and a science, and for them, there are real consequences for being wrong. So they project this air of authority, rightly so, but that same authority often prevents them from ever re-evaluating something they said before, depending on the person.

Good doctors are willing to admit that health and diagnosis can be a fluid thing and adjust accordingly, taking it in stride. Bad doctors want to give you one diagnosis and stick to it so they can see their other patients.

I get this in tech sometimes. When something doesn't work, I'm the expert, my clients are not. My clients try to make guesses at what could be wrong. "Oh it's only wrong in this instance at this time, so it must be this." I often just straight up tell them "no, that's not how it works" because I have the knowledge and because software, unlike the human body, is something I can look directly at the guts of and that operates mostly on unalterable truths. Most of my customers go "oh, ok, you're the expert." Very rarely do one of my non-technical clients figure out what the actual problem is, that's why they pay me instead.

[Eschar]

because software, unlike the human body, is something I can look directly at the guts of and that operates mostly on unalterable truths.

Good point

[McTraveller]

because software, unlike the human body, is something I can look directly at the guts of and that operates mostly on unalterable truths.

Good point

/digression:

Huh? The human body doesn't obey the unalterable laws of physics?  It's just a difference in complexity...  Software's actually worse in some ways, because it just has to obey the laws of logic which are more flexible than the laws of physics.

[Max™]

Also the problem of "doctor=smarter than me at medicine, therefore doctor=smarter than me at x, y, and z" and you get stupid cunts like "dr" phil and oz getting "suddenly" revealed to be terrible shitbags. Yeah, big fucking surprise, look folks, if someone tells you they're a doctor but they had a chance to punch that baby killing skank mccartney in her throat before she spewed any more of her bullshit, they ain't worth shit.

I don't have a phd but I goddamn well understand the obligations one takes on when caring for a patient, and cunts like those two clearly do not... but hey, nobody ever said thoracic surgery required one to have a good moral sense or understanding of ethics.

Shit, Ben Carson is a neurosurgeon, and a monstrous fucking idiot who is completely out of his depth anywhere else.

Know what it takes to be great at brain surgery? Steady hands.
Know what it takes to be even halfway decent at running the office of housing and development? Understanding of the various codes, public issues, financial factors, and none of those involve steady hands.

[nenjin]

because software, unlike the human body, is something I can look directly at the guts of and that operates mostly on unalterable truths.

Good point

/digression:

Huh? The human body doesn't obey the unalterable laws of physics?  It's just a difference in complexity...  Software's actually worse in some ways, because it just has to obey the laws of logic which are more flexible than the laws of physics.

Sure it obeys the unalterable law of physics, but the law of thermodynamics isn't necessarily relevant to, say, a genetic defect where their particular body doesn't produce a certain enzyme the way 97.6% of the rest of the human population does. There is far more diversity in the make up of the human body than there is in, say, versions of windows, or network stacks, printer drivers, .DLLs or what updates someone has or has not downloaded. Logic is still logic.

I'd posit there are far more permutations of the human body that have to be diagnosed carefully than there are versions of software or operating systems and so forth. One is crafted by nature, one is crafted by humans.

My appreciation for medicine and how it is never cut and dry with the human body was really enhanced by this youtube channel I started watching: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKOvOaJv4GK-oDqx-sj7VVg

Diagnostics is rarely simple.

[McTraveller]

Understanding of the various codes, public issues, financial factors, and none of those involve steady hands.

And unlike brains, none of those things (especially laws) have to follow any kind of logic.  In some places laws don't even have to follow precedent....