[albrewer]

In my experience the quality varies wildly, but every doctor has a base level of knowledge that is far deeper than a layperson. The quality of that knowledge is usually very high, and seems to be pretty well retained by most doctors I've met.

The quality of the actual doctor varies on whether the doctor is a lifelong learner, a deep thinker, a good listener, is good at extracting information from people who are bad at introspecting how they feel, and communicating with people whose language skills and mental capacity are far below or above their own. They also leave out their personal biases about "what" the person they're treating might be (drug seeker, hypochondriac, malingerer, etc.).

If you visit a doctor and they don't have the ability or time to execute those non-medical training qualities, then you get a bad doctor.

The main issue is that the good doctors usually go to desirable places to live. This is often not in rural or even suburban areas of the country, and that's typically where the bad stories come from (adjusted for population density anyway - lots of stories from cities too but there are more people in cities).

[ipaddr]

Most have knowledge of what they studied in college and what worked over the years and by worked they mean did not get sued, made the most money on and worked quickly.

They are not paid by outcome they are paid by referrals, tests, drugs sold and consulting