[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).