[jjoonathan]

It's quite a leap unless you have worked extensively with doctors before and seen the behavior first hand too many times to count.

I get why it happens: they have to deal directly with patients who 99% of the time are not research capable and if they claim to be research capable what they really mean is that they've been sharing conspiracy theories on facebook. Doctors build defense mechanisms against the nonsense (authoritative tone, dismissive attitude) that grate on academic sensibilities. They can be slow to come around but eventually they usually do.

[wincy]

And you’re right, that’s exactly what happened. My wife wrote up a set of concise notes with citations and asked if the social worker could forward it to the doctors. We met with the doctors a few days later and they thanked my wife over and over again for the document, and the conversation totally changed from one that felt adversarial to one that felt much more collaborative and productive.

As the doctors cycled out though it sort of reverted to the mean, back to the authoritarian stance you expect from doctors, since NICU doctors were constantly rotating out.