[gardnr]

I wouldn't label that arrogance. In my experience outside the USA, my GP has been unaware of new research / advice / guidelines published by the MoH. They generally respond to new info from reputable sources when you print it out and bring it to them.

I would expect specialists to be subscribed to journals and reading the latest articles in their field. When I saw a specialist at UCSF this was definitely the case; while my GP still has gaps where their current knowledge on a specific subject is from their time at med school.

An equivalence would be a front-end engineer being naive to the happenings on the Linux kernel mailing list. They could likely understand what's going on if they took the time to read it, but that is not their focus.

[Auracle]

The fact that there are advertisements for cancer medications make me think a hell of a lot of specialists don’t keep up. It’s one thing to advertise to consumers about a new medication for their chronic condition and they might not have seen their doctor in 3 years. It’s another entirely to have cancer patients need to ask about the new hotness.