[coldtea]

>Why? It's not rocket science, and it's not like this is a complex decision that you couldn't adequately make after 15 of Internet searching.

Yeah, and people making the wrong decision can only result in a plague like condition with hundreds of millions dead, so no big deal...

>The doctor is just running off a standard checklist for one of among 50 almost exactly alike cases during his workday.

Yeah, who needs doctors when there's the internet + idiots...

[otabdeveloper1]

Being a doctor (i.e., general practitioner) is a job that is less cognitively loaded and carries less responsibility than the job of a car mechanic.

General practitioners are simply running off standard checklists for standard ailments. It's no different from reading a car repair manual.

And unlike car mechanics, you probably won't succeed in suing your doctor if he used the wrong checklist and got you injured by mistake.

P.S. Being a doctor in a more complex specialty is not much different, but then you're expected to read literature and keep up with current science research. It's still fundamentally checklist-based, but at least there's an expectation that the checklists are being updated.

[coldtea]

>General practitioners are simply running off standard checklists for standard ailments. It's no different from reading a car repair manual.

They also have 8+ years of training to "run those lists", know better what to suggest when something is not on the list, can see things the person haven't noticed themselves, and so on -- not to mention that they have more intelligence (to get through med school and all) than the average citizen...

Even the fact that we're seriously having this discussion proves their necessity.

That's how you end up with homeopathy and anti-vaccines, because "what do doctors know anyway"...

(And I'm all for being suspicious of the pharma corporations, medical industry for their profit-driven motives, but "a GP just runs a list so do it yourself off of the internet" is a no-go).

[thiago_fm]

This is wrong is wrong in so many levels. Sure, you can fit the whole universe knowledge in a checklist.

Doctors can see much more than a normal person, by just looking at your face. A bright person would possibly take 8+ years to have a beginner ability on this. Just as I can in 5 minutes grasp the quality of a codebase better than a beginner.

I can give you the guitar tabs for Cliff of Dover. Can you follow the instructions?