Easy I

This is a two part post.

Doctors don't want you to know this: medicine is easy. It should be. We want to be right most of the time. We want to know what we're doing. And the majority of time, it's simple. Hopefully we know the patient who comes in because we are their primary care doctor. Much of the time, we can make an accurate diagnosis based on the history and physical exam. We send off a few tests to confirm. We may start an empiric treatment. Our diagnosis is correct, our management appropriate, and the patient is satisfied.

Countless doctor visits proceed in this fashion. It is the standard of treatment, it is the patient's expectations, and we've made it easy. Despite the long and severe training, anyone who gets through it is capable of being a doctor. Doctors and medical students aren't particularly brilliant. We work hard, enjoy learning, but hardly any of us are geniuses. Patients usually don't shop around for doctors based on their education; Harvard doctors aren't necessarily more sought after than other MDs. We trust that our doctor, by virtue of completing their training, is good enough to complete that simple task of diagnosis and management.