[jsonne]

I don't think so, I think there's a combination of things that are happening that makes their jobs more difficult and a lot of macro changes happening in the world as well as just bad expectations that we have as patients. I am not in the medical field, this is simply my layman's interpretation of what is going on.

1. Doctors are not the same are researchers in many or most cases. They are more akin to technicians than scientists. In the same way I wouldn't expect my electrician to meaningfully innovate the way that he hooks up my house to the power grid or I wouldn't expect my plumber to fundamentally shift my city's sewer system to better serve my individual house that simply isn't their job as front line folks administering care.

2. I think we are massively overlooking simply the breadth and depth of the changes in the world and how that affects their profession. We are exposed to a staggering and exponentially increasing amount of chemicals, environmental toxins, pollutants, foods, and their patients come from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds and live in wildly different environments with wildly different lifestyles. I have to imagine 100 years ago if you were a doctor in say Ireland, you mostly knew what your patients did for work, what they ate, they all lived in roughly the same area, etc. The variables of health were simply much less.

3. The same time the amount of diseases / disorders / etc. that we've identified has grown exponentially. When the field of things that it could be even if that was an incomplete list (obviously) it was much easier to give a broad diagnosis than a specific one. This has improved treatment to be sure but also demanded specialization so any one doctor having all the answers gets less likely over time.

4. Lastly it's just financial pressures. Markets and especially insurance is part of this but I think in general as globalization has continued to accelerate and resources are being distributed more and more in some sense (and concentrated in other senses) you have to take a holistic view. You say doctors used to be "better" but better where? If all the doctors are in a handful of countries with most of the resources that sub group of people will yes get better care but what about everyone else?