At the same time doctors are given immense authority and depending on circumstance very limited oversight in their administration of care. People will go to three different practices and get radically different diagnosis and prescriptions. There are substantive and documented biases amongst medical practitioners as well, including how women are substantially less likely to be treated for a heart attack because many doctors don't believe their reported symptoms.
Medicine is also a precipitously massive field of study and in the same way a programmer isn't expected to know every language and technology - hell, most are not expected to understand even the full breadth of the standard library or code base they are presently working in - few doctors are actually as informed as they like to act. A lot of it is cultural, doctors are supposed to be authoritative, but the US has a very problematic medical culture of assumed authority that has people putting blind faith in doctors who "trust their instincts" and end up being completely wrong and hurting people for it.
Remember that medical malpractice lawsuits are still overseen by a judge. If there is a settlement, there often was a mistake made. The solution to malpractice costs is not have doctors make mistakes but to reduce how often mistakes happen.
A lot of those remedies require a reform of culture though, and that is one of the hardest challenges to approach. And don't think I'm just "blaming" practicing doctors here, its structural to the industry and is why MDs are being put on 18 hour highly stressful shifts where its unbelievable they make as few mistakes as they do in such unreasonable working environments.
Medicine is also a precipitously massive field of study and in the same way a programmer isn't expected to know every language and technology - hell, most are not expected to understand even the full breadth of the standard library or code base they are presently working in - few doctors are actually as informed as they like to act. A lot of it is cultural, doctors are supposed to be authoritative, but the US has a very problematic medical culture of assumed authority that has people putting blind faith in doctors who "trust their instincts" and end up being completely wrong and hurting people for it.
Remember that medical malpractice lawsuits are still overseen by a judge. If there is a settlement, there often was a mistake made. The solution to malpractice costs is not have doctors make mistakes but to reduce how often mistakes happen.
A lot of those remedies require a reform of culture though, and that is one of the hardest challenges to approach. And don't think I'm just "blaming" practicing doctors here, its structural to the industry and is why MDs are being put on 18 hour highly stressful shifts where its unbelievable they make as few mistakes as they do in such unreasonable working environments.