You'd like to think they are all equally competent trained professionals, but that is not the case.
I'm sure the same is true of doctors too.
Doctors, Lawyers, Dentists, CEOs can be idiots and may not know what they are doing. I hope the last vestiges of unquestioned authority and decision making in medical settings will be gone for the next generation.
But it can be just as much of an issue to disregard any "authority" on the part of actual professionals. Your doctor isn't a genius, they aren't god, and they don't know as much about your body as you do. But .... they do know HUGELY more about medicine, disease, interventions, symptoms and so forth than you do (and almost certainly more than you will ever know).
That's something you should question. While Doctors know more than you about medicine in general, one usually does not have to do a lot of research to know more about their specific ailment than the family doctor does.
It wasn't that hard to find out what caused this.
But about a year later, we had a couple of med students staying with us, and before I even got to the end of the symptoms, they asked me specifically if I had eaten one very particular kind of fish (which is actually illegal in many nations and even some US states). They didn't even bat an eyelid, and they were of course 100% correct.
Yes, I can "do my own research", but fitting that into an overall view of drug and physiology interactions is something quite different, as is simply knowing stuff that for other people is complete arcane knowledge.
Wat was the correct answer that your med students guessed?
Legitimate idiots who somehow acquire professional titles/positions. Things like "Florida surgeon removes wrong organ."
Then you can have honest mistakes by otherwise good practitioners.
What I want from my doctors and dentists is a sort of consultative collaboration, but the systems (in the US) are optimizing for transactions.
Depends. When it comes you many chronic conditions (example: high cholesterol), their treatments will actively harm you, than when left untreated. There are a lot of bogus treatments out there and certainly they will appear to know a lot, but it's harmful intervention that they know.
Bottom line - you have to take a call depending on the situation. As a general rule complete disregard for authority in case of medicine in a developed country will do more people OVERALL good. I'm not saying that they cannot be legitimately helpful, but those cases are far and few in the developed world.
"Actively harm me" ... sure, it happens, but generalizing to this degree seems unjustified to me.
Note: my wife also has high cholesterol, and has problems with statins. Her doctor has and continues to work with her to find solutions, and progress is being made.
Once it became clear that it was transmitted by airborne inhalation, that recommendation changed.
The people questioning it were not branded anti-science, they were branded as claiming to know something that was not known, at that time.
If we didn't know, then the correct action would be to exercise pre-caution.
> at that time there was perceived to be a strong likelihood of supply shortages that would affect medical providers worldwide
Then, say that. Instead they specifically recommended against masks and said masks wasn't effective.
COVID is visibly like a flu where people cough. Saying masks doesn't work for flu-like diseases raises red flags... but people who dared questioning it were branded "anti-science".
And police officers, teachers, race car drivers, and engineers too. There is an implicit assumption that most professionals all meet some unified bar of competency but that is far too often not the case. Like most anyone else, dentists and doctors are out to get as much money as they can for as little work as possible, and that is the system we currently endure.
When I find someone who gladly tells me I don't stuff to pay for, I keep their number. On the other hand, it's getting more and more difficult to find an AC repair guy who isn't trying to sell me a new unit every maintenance visit.
I did rediscover the eye doctor recently, and the tech and overall experience is much better than when I was a teen.
Dentists are doctors.
Common vernacular is commonly wrong, we get it. Yes, you can be referred to as "Doctor" with a PhD in Physics, English, or History.
Guess what? If there was an emergency on a plane and the staff called out for a Doctor, and somebody with a PhD in structural engineering stood up, you'd be yelled at.
Anyway in a pinch you can be fairly sure that any non-medical doctor is extremely (maybe narrowly) educated, whatever that's worth. A young MD might be less appropriate.