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Comment by 0xbadcafebee | Hacker News Reader

> The only lingering effects appeared to be a wariness of physicians and distrust of vitamins, both understandable

I am not a doctor, by any stretch of the imagination. But I do work on cars, and computers. As far as I can tell, a doctor works exactly the same way as a mechanic or a computer technician. They listen to symptoms, make an educated guess at a root cause based on limited information, make an educated guess at what might resolve the situation, and then wait to hear back if that fixed it; if it didn't, the loop continues.

Medicine might be scientific, but the practice of medicine is clearly an art, not a science. I don't trust my mechanic; why the hell would I trust my doctor?

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> They listen to symptoms, make an educated guess at a root cause based on limited information, make an educated guess at what might resolve the situation, and then wait to hear back if that fixed it; if it didn't, the loop continues.

Having been a mechanic and having worked with a lot of MDs, unfortunately, neither profession really works that way anymore.

Mostly, you're taking symptoms, yes, but then you use a computer system to 'help' educate your guesses. By 'help' here, I mean that most mechanics and MDs just kinda blindly plug the symptoms into the computer and then start reading.

These systems have pretty detailed stats on the possible causes and fixes, what you should go check out again to get more data for the computer, etc.

Both sets of systems can pretty reliably turn a C level person into a B+/A- level person. As such the subscriptions are worth every penny.

Mechanics (in my day) use AllData : https://www.alldata.com/us/en/repair

MDs use UpToDate : https://www.uptodate.com/login

Gaining expertise in cars/computers doesn't really translate to health medicine. It's a fallacy that I saw first hand, that say, some one gains expertise in one thing then feels confident to take on another in DIY spirit. A concrete example is someone who builds a shed that thinks they can do a bathroom renovation/remodel or build their own cabinets (don't look at me :P).

Having to throw in the towel and hire a professional I saw: - How experts do things much faster (literally 1/3rd the time). - How experts avoid conflicts ahead of time/or deal with them as they arise quickly - How experts know the name of all the things ahead of time - How experts realize when a problem is out of their wheelhouse and requires a referral (electrical/plumbing/etc).

I had to call it quits mainly because the DIY spirit is instilled into me by my father and love for tinkering. But I see it in my father, he tries to repair his own cars (with good results), because in his words mechanics are a scam and for the longest time I kind of assumed so too, but the truth is expertise is invaluable and what you are paying for is time/knowledge.

You don't expect yourself to go to med school to diagnose your problem, someone has already done that and you can leverage that.

seems like your entire argument hinges on misusing words the words: exactly, symptoms, art, science, and trust

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