“You’re Just a Barista. I’m a Doctor.” This Is Why People Don’t Trust Us Anymore.
A small interaction at a coffee shop says something much bigger about medicine, arrogance, and the slow death of public trust.
“You’re Just a Barista. I’m a Doctor.” This Is Why People Don’t Trust Us Anymore.
A post from Jack Benchakul, the owner and barista behind Endorffeine Coffee in Los Angeles, recently made its way across my feed. It was one of those posts that makes you laugh for about three seconds and then immediately feel a little depressed about society.
The quote at the top said:
“You’re just a barista. I’m a doctor.”
And underneath it, Jack’s response:
“Actually, I’m a happy person… and you are not.”
Now, I do not know the doctor. I do not know the full context. I do not know if the quote is word-for-word (though, from what I know about Jack, it is absolutely word for word), what happened before, what happened after, or whether someone had just been denied oat milk foam in a way that destabilized their entire personality. So this is not really about one specific doctor.
It is about the attitude.
And unfortunately, that attitude is not nearly rare enough.
Medicine used to be one of the most trusted and respected professions in the world. It still should be. Most doctors I know are not cartoon villains twirling stethoscopes while yelling at the administrative staff. Most are kind, thoughtful, overworked, exhausted people trying to help patients while surviving a system that often makes everyone miserable.
But we also have to be honest with ourselves. Doctors have done a pretty good job lately of helping destroy trust in doctors.
Not all doctors. Not most doctors. But enough doctors, enough times, in enough small moments, that the public has noticed.
People do not only distrust medicine and public health because of one policy, one pandemic, one agency, one mistake, or one controversial recommendation. They distrust it because they have felt the tone behind the recommendation. They have felt the eye roll. They have felt the dismissal. They have felt the “please stop talking because I already know more than you” energy that sometimes enters the room before the doctor does.
During COVID, this became impossible to miss. Questions became burdensome. Concerns became misinformation. Parents who wanted nuance were treated like enemies instead of teammates. People who asked about risk, benefit, natural immunity, school closures, masks, mandates, vaccine safety, or any number of complicated topics were often not met with education. They were met with a lecture. Or worse, contempt.
And contempt is poison for trust.
You cannot shame people into trusting you. You cannot mandate people into respecting you. You cannot call people idiots for years and then act surprised when they stop inviting you to the group chat.
This is where the doctor-barista comment becomes more than just one rude interaction. It is emblematic of something much bigger: the belief that a title makes you better than the person in front of you.
That is the part that drives people crazy.
Not that doctors know things. Of course doctors know things. We should know things. That was sort of the point of all those years of school, debt, sleep deprivation, and eating hospital cafeteria eggs that may or may not have been eggs.
The problem is when knowledge becomes arrogance.
It is when “I have training in this area” becomes “I am better than you.” It is when “I disagree” becomes “you are stupid.” It is when “let me explain” becomes “let me put you in your place.”
That is not expertise. That is insecurity wearing a white coat.
And in this case, the irony is almost too perfect, because Jack Benchakul is not exactly someone who wandered into coffee because he couldn’t figure out what else to do.
Before Endorffeine, he worked as a molecular biologist at Genentech, then moved into pastry before eventually building the most respected coffee shops in Los Angeles (maybe the world). His approach to coffee is famously precise, scientific, and obsessive in the best possible way. In 2026, he was selected as a James Beard Award finalist for Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service, which is a pretty remarkable thing for a coffee professional.
So, yes, he is a barista.
He is also a scientist of coffee. A craftsman. A business owner. A person who chose a path he loved and seems to have built something with an almost ridiculous level of care. That is not something to mock. That is something to respect.
And honestly, if you have ever been to Endorffeine, you know. It is not exactly the place you go when you want a unicorn frappuccino with twelve pumps of syrup and a side of emotional support whipped cream. It is the place you go when you want coffee made by someone who appears to have thought more deeply about water chemistry than I have thought about most major life decisions.
I have had the honor of attending one of Jack’s special tasting days, where we got to try a curated menu of coffees he selected. I realize “coffee tasting menu” may sound excessive to some people, especially those who believe coffee should taste like burnt office sadness and come in a Styrofoam cup, but it was genuinely incredible. What stood out was not just the flavor. It was the love. The attention. The precision. The sense that every detail mattered.
That is expertise.
It may not come with a medical degree, but it is expertise.
And this is where medicine needs to humble itself. We are not the only people with knowledge. We are not the only people with discipline. We are not the only people who worked hard, sacrificed, studied, practiced, failed, learned, and became good at something.
A nurse has expertise. A medical assistant has expertise. A parent has expertise about their own child. A teacher has expertise. A therapist has expertise. A farmer, a chef, a mechanic, a barista, a plumber, a carpenter, a pilot, a firefighter — all of these people know things that I do not know.
In many areas of life, I am the clueless one. Give me a broken sink, a sourdough starter, or one of those Ikea shelves with 900 screws, and suddenly my medical degree becomes decorative.
This should not be hard for doctors to understand.
But somehow, sometimes, it is.
You see it in the way some doctors talk to staff. You see it in the way some physicians treat nurses like they are background noise instead of the people keeping the whole system from collapsing. You see it when a parent asks a reasonable question and gets treated like they just walked in holding a stack of conspiracy pamphlets and a crystal. You see it when a mother says, “Something feels off with my child,” and instead of curiosity, she gets condescension.
And then medicine wonders why people are searching elsewhere.
We wonder why trust is plummeting. We wonder why public health messaging no longer lands. We wonder why parents are reading, questioning, hesitating, and asking for second opinions. We wonder why people do not simply accept the recommendation because “the doctor said so.”
Maybe part of the answer is that too many people have learned that “the doctor said so” sometimes comes with a side of arrogance.
That does not mean doctors are bad. It does not mean expertise does not matter. It does not mean every question has equal scientific weight. It does not mean medicine should become a free-for-all where everyone’s opinion is the same as decades of training.
But it does mean that how we treat people matters.
It means that if a parent asks a question, our job is not to humiliate them. It means if someone is scared, our job is not to mock them. It means if someone disagrees, our job is not to turn them into an enemy. It means if someone serves us coffee, checks us in, cleans the room, answers the phone, or helps care for our patients, we should not need a reminder that they are human beings deserving of respect.
Trust is not built in press releases. It is not rebuilt with public health slogans. It is not restored by telling people to “follow the science” while refusing to explain the science. Trust is built in tiny moments that usually do not go viral. A conversation. A question. A pause. An apology. A doctor saying, “That is a fair concern.” A physician saying, “I do not know, but let’s look into it.” A clinician letting a parent finish the sentence.
And yes, maybe also by not insulting the barista before your espresso.
If doctors want to regain trust, humility has to come back into the room. Not fake humility. Not “I’m sorry you feel that way” humility. Real humility. The kind that understands a medical degree gives you responsibility, not superiority. It gives you a role, not a throne.
So maybe the lesson here is simple.
Kindness wins. Respect matters. Curiosity should not disappear just because someone does not have the same letters after their name. And being a doctor does not make you better than the person across the counter.
It just means you picked a different job.
Jack may be “just a barista” to someone who cannot see past titles. But from where I am standing, he is a master of his craft, a scientist of coffee, and a person who chose precision, purpose, and happiness.
Medicine could learn a lot from that.
And maybe the rest of us could too.
Dr. Gator
P.S. This is not a paid promotion for Endorffeine. It is truly my favorite coffee spot, and I am genuinely disappointed in my profession that this happened, even if I am not exactly shocked.
And Jack, if you somehow read this, I will however, graciously accept payment in cold brew hahaha
Last year (February 2025) when my unjabbed friend in her late 70s was about to undergo open heart surgery, as her advocate I asked her cardiologist if she would receive any vaccines while in the hospital. I was so relieved when he said he never recommends that to his patients before they about to have surgery.
Then imagine my horror when I asked him about the Covid shots and he said the benefits outweighed any risks. I mentioned the 30k deaths in VAERS. I could tell he had no idea what I was talking about.
Total medical knowledge and infallibility does not come packaged with the granting of a medical degree. That should be obvious. And yet we, the “non-experts” are constantly being admonished to believe this illusion. If a doctor says something, and we don’t do it, we are a “bad patient”. If we ask questions, we are a “bad patient”. If we reject a pharmaceutical because we have done research and do not want to deal with the side effects, we are a “bad patient”. One of the biggest mistakes of my life was allowing myself to be intimidated into doing what a doctor prescribed for my grandchild when my gut and common sense told me that we should hold off on the drug because the child was already showing some signs of improvement. But a family member who is a doctor (whom I genuinely love and respect) rebuked me for not blindly following what this other doctor ordered because, as we all know: doctors know more than me. They have a medical degree, and I don’t. My grandchild had a terrible reaction to the drug, and literally months of heartbreaking suffering ensued. I’m still mad at myself allowing myself to be intimidated and not doing what was best for my grandson at that time.