> but trying to get his colleagues to believe it would be an uphill battle
You have to go through a lot of education to become a doctor, so people naturally expect doctor's to be wise, but the truth is they are just good a memorizing things. They aren't necessarily smarter than any other person and have just as many blindspots.
* Source: My dad and uncle are doctors. My brother in law is a doctor. I have a friend who is a doctor. And I've known a lot of other doctors through them.
I dated a med school student for all of medschool and some rotations. Thus I have countless doctor friends now from those years. Everytime I bring up the reality of what most doctors are like, I get downvoted on HN for some reason.
The doctor I dated for years never drank water. She loved diet coke. She ate mcdonalds constantly but avoided the bun. She was skinny though. I had to teach her how to pump gas because her dad did it for her until she was 22. She loved cocaine and moly. Currently cycles Adderall and Ritalin (or something very similar) so she doesnt get too used to one or the other. I could list 20 other 'wtf?' type of things about her. Most others are similarly weird, careless, unhealthy, confused and logicless.
> Everytime I bring up the reality of what most doctors are like
Is your insight that doctors are regular educated humans suffering from the same flaws and vices as other regular educated humans?
> She loved cocaine and moly. Currently cycles Adderall and Ritalin (or something very similar) so she doesn’t get too used to one or the other.
Not sure what this is supposed to imply. I expect the same can also be said for at least 20% of doctors, dentists, SV, Big Law, Wall Street and Main Street in the 20-29 age range.
Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, no knowledge of anything real world other than your job, are not qualities of "regular educated people".
They are modern qualities of the loud morality failed majority these days. Just because it's common for celebrities and kids of rich people to do drugs and screw around, doesn't mean that's what my parents expect from their doctors.
> Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, no knowledge of anything real world other than your job, are not qualities of "regular educated people".
Actually they are, your statement applies to any one of the examples I gave you of what society considers successful/prestigious careers. Silicon Valley is the poster child for stimulant and hallucinogen use/abuse, are they not similarly regular educated people?
> Just because it's common for celebrities and kids of rich people to do drugs and screw around
Where are you getting the idea that it's only common amongst celebrities and kids of rich people?
> They are modern qualities of the loud morality failed majority these days.
I don't even know what "loud morality failed majority" means but morality (particularly your personal definition of it) =/= professional competency.
The disconnect here seems to be your expectations (and definition of morality but that's a separate point). Your parents, and you, seem to be unaware of how common stimulant, alcohol and drug use is amongst white-collar professionals.
Sorry to disappoint but as a group physicians are no different. This has no relevance on professional competency. Fun fact for you the "fathers of modern medicine" who have all the diseases named after them and designed the residency education system were all overt cocaine addicts, thats part of why the hours are so long.
Jesus man. I understand that degenerate behavior is common in today's doctors. That was my entire point of the original post. Otherwise what would I really be saying? That I knew ONE almost drug addict doctor that looks forward to her next festival? Obviously one of everything exists.
My point about celebrities and rich famous people was that they normalized it, to the point that you aren't even surprised doctors are druggies in their free time.
No one cars that some Uber programmer is on speed. More people would care to know that their doctor that recommends heart pressure medication is a druggy, because they'd know this personal doesn't really care about potential kidney damage in themselves, so of course they'll recommend you take kidney damaging heart medication without really explaining that that's what is happening.
If you left the SV and internet bubble, you'd learn that drug use and alcohol use is not liked by most in their higher level professionals.
You have to go through a lot of education to become a doctor, so people naturally expect doctor's to be wise, but the truth is they are just good a memorizing things. They aren't necessarily smarter than any other person and have just as many blindspots.
* Source: My dad and uncle are doctors. My brother in law is a doctor. I have a friend who is a doctor. And I've known a lot of other doctors through them.