This might've been different 50 years ago but it's the number one striver job there is.
Again ... maybe it's just my experience. None of these were super life threatening conditions. However I did go under the operating knife at least once; in that case, the operation was successful, healed me of the condition, and never caused any negative side-effects to this day.
Maybe there's a difference in regulation. A lot of the "entrepreneurial" landscape seems unregulated and a kind of Wild West, and I suppose that allows for certain kinds of personalities to succeed by suspect means. The medical field, by contrast, is quite regulated and there are very real risks to malpractice. Thus, I think it attracts better people and allows them to succeed.
Maybe it's similar to how dictators often take over in poor or struggling countries, whereas they find it harder to get a foothold in developed, prosperous countries with strong institutions.
This all changes when they get more difficult patients. As someone who's been told bogus by doctors, even lightly pushing back many will completely change demeanor, you're no longer some easy money but a risk/annoyance. So your good experiences basically just show doctors in their 'perfect state'.
This isn't the same in every country as you say it's a regulated field and the regulations differ wildly from country to country and so does the view and behaviour of doctors.
My point is that, when the institution supports and encourages virtuous behaviour, the actors within the institution are more likely to practice virtue.
I think this is also largely the point of Plato's Republic.
You're also missing your interlocutor's point.
> Why would I want to make it difficult or put impediments in the way of my doctors doing their job well?
Doctors very often don't do a good job with complex cases - like rare conditions, complicated histories, or multiple interacting factors - and some will treat the patient as "difficult" or "an impediment" when they (the doctor) haven't grokked the situation. Very few patients are trying to be an impediment - 99% are trying to help achieve a good outcome, though sometimes their definition of that is misguided or impossible - but it is frustrating to be treated that way by someone who genuinely knows less about your situation than you do. ("Doc, I've taken that test before, and I've tried that medication before - I know it's not in your EMR, but here is a printout - what are you looking for this time that you expect to be different than before?" That conversation doesn't always go well - and even when it does, you're likely to be told "I can't [read: hospital / insurance policy won't permit] try something else until we've done those again" - so you'll end up going back to step A with each new provider.)
In fairness to doctors, many of them work within horrible constraints: it's impossible to get a handle on a complex situation in one twenty minute appointment every six months, and there's little point trying when it's likely the patient will be reassigned to a new provider by next year, anyway. The tension between medical ethics and practice and hospital (let alone, in the US, insurance) ethics and practice is enormous, and (for the individual doctors and patients caught up in it) intractable.
You are extremely lucky, then.
As a man, I've been gaslit by my doctors about my depression. My PC in my early 20s told me I was just lazy and needed to get a "real" job.
For women, by all accounts, it's much worse. I have not met a woman yet who has not had a story about some doctor treating her like a child, minimizing her pain, etc.
I don't deny there's privilege involved in my case. Again, this seems an institutional problem. The medical field as a whole needs more inclusive frameworks to deal with women's health, racial justice, LGBTIQ, ageism and much more. These are issues need to be addressed at an institution and even whole-of-society level. You can't expect each individual to independently solve for them all. At the very least, they need education.