[chongli]

they are told to get some rest and maybe prescribed something. I don't think that needs 8 years of medical school.

What takes 8 years of medical school is knowing when not to tell the patient that. When telling the patient to go home and rest could result in severe illness or death.

[jjoonathan]

Except that it doesn't, because other countries see similar performance metrics with less overall training.

Nobody in charge is doing the "extra training increases costs by X which decreases availability by X which causes X damage vs lack of training causes X' damage" calculation -- everybody just argues for more training every time there's a problem, with the inevitable result of our stupendously expensive outlier of a medical system with middling measured performance and poor, ever-worsening accessibility.