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.
I remember 100 years ago when I was a student nurse, patients would sometimes ask a question of the old Nurse Ratchet types, who would answer "Because Doctor said so." (not "THE Doctor", just "Doctor"). Usually, the patients were sufficiently cowed and asked no more questions. Even then, young and wet behind the ears, I vowed never to treat a patient like that, and I haven't, ever. My coworkers complain that I spend too much time answering questions and explaining things, but I've been doing it for 34 years, and I ain't changing now.
We just seem to be on rinse and repeat, not learning humility, case in point - Ignaz Semmelweis who determined that hand washing reduced chances of women dying giving birth. He was ridiculed and not believed because again medical professionals who in their arrogance, thought somehow that this did not apply to them. Again, Nazi Germany, it was the doctors and nurses who carried out the attrocities.
The barista line is funny for about three seconds, then depressing in exactly the way you described. Status without humility turns competence into bad bedside manner. Medicine needs authority, obviously, but the profession loses people fast when authority starts sounding like contempt.
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.
I remember 100 years ago when I was a student nurse, patients would sometimes ask a question of the old Nurse Ratchet types, who would answer "Because Doctor said so." (not "THE Doctor", just "Doctor"). Usually, the patients were sufficiently cowed and asked no more questions. Even then, young and wet behind the ears, I vowed never to treat a patient like that, and I haven't, ever. My coworkers complain that I spend too much time answering questions and explaining things, but I've been doing it for 34 years, and I ain't changing now.
We just seem to be on rinse and repeat, not learning humility, case in point - Ignaz Semmelweis who determined that hand washing reduced chances of women dying giving birth. He was ridiculed and not believed because again medical professionals who in their arrogance, thought somehow that this did not apply to them. Again, Nazi Germany, it was the doctors and nurses who carried out the attrocities.
The barista line is funny for about three seconds, then depressing in exactly the way you described. Status without humility turns competence into bad bedside manner. Medicine needs authority, obviously, but the profession loses people fast when authority starts sounding like contempt.