I am expected to know and understand all of the risk factors that someone may encounter in their engineering or manufacturing or cooking or whatever line of work, and to know about people’s social lives, recreational activities, dietary habits, substance usage, and hobbies can affect their health. In order to practice medicine effectively, I need to know almost everything about how humans work and what they get up to in the world outside the exam room.
In order to practice medicine effectively, I need to know almost everything about how humans work and what they get up to in the world outside the exam room.
This attitude is why people complain about doctors having God complexes and why doctors frequently fall victim to pseudoscientific claims. You think you know far more about how the world works than you actually do, and it’s my contention that that is a result of the way med students are taught in med school.
I’m not saying I know everything about how the world works, or that I know better than you when it comes to medicine, but I know enough to recognize my limits, which is something with which doctors (and engineers) struggle.
Granted, some of these conclusions are due to my anecdotal experience, but there are lots of studies looking at instruction in med school vs grad school that reach the conclusion that medicine is not science specifically because medical schools do not emphasize skepticism and critical thought to the same extent that science programs do. I’ll find some studies and link them when I’m not on mobile.
I am expected to know and understand all of the risk factors that someone may encounter in their engineering or manufacturing or cooking or whatever line of work, and to know about people’s social lives, recreational activities, dietary habits, substance usage, and hobbies can affect their health. In order to practice medicine effectively, I need to know almost everything about how humans work and what they get up to in the world outside the exam room.
This attitude is why people complain about doctors having God complexes and why doctors frequently fall victim to pseudoscientific claims. You think you know far more about how the world works than you actually do, and it’s my contention that that is a result of the way med students are taught in med school.
I’m not saying I know everything about how the world works, or that I know better than you when it comes to medicine, but I know enough to recognize my limits, which is something with which doctors (and engineers) struggle.
Granted, some of these conclusions are due to my anecdotal experience, but there are lots of studies looking at instruction in med school vs grad school that reach the conclusion that medicine is not science specifically because medical schools do not emphasize skepticism and critical thought to the same extent that science programs do. I’ll find some studies and link them when I’m not on mobile.
edit: Here’s an op-ed from a professor at the University of Washington Medical School. Study 1. Study 2.