Amongst your coworkers, there are people who:
- suck at their job
- are competent at their job
- are great at their job
So when you are working on something, you may be working with someone who sucks (“gah frig”), who is competent (“okay, this is fine”) or who is great (“BOOYAH I DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING CAPT GENIUS PANTS HAS IT UNDER CONTROL”).
Doctors are just people at work. Some suck, most are competent, very few are great. So when a doctor tells you something, just pretend it is coming from a shitty or AT BEST mediocre coworker, and then react as you would normally (calling them useless? getting a second look from someone else who is actually good at their job?) to a coworker – and don’t automatically assume that just because they have the training that they are good at their job. Plenty of MBTA bus drivers have training, but a whole lot of them are terrible at driving a bus.
What do you call the person who finishes last in their class at med school? Doctor
That said, as one who deals with doctors of all levels of quality everyday, it is my experienced opinion that I’d much rather have them treating and diagnosing me than webmd.com or Google.