doctors aren't smart, just dedicated
*read whole post or at least tldr before commenting* of course I have extremely high respect for medical professionals, they are life savers, but I see the constant narrative on blind that doctors are some sort of holy geniuses, when in reality the path to becoming a doctor is just extreme dedication. now think about it - there are no "rockstar doctors" like rockstar engineers, because doctors work isn't actually logic based, its all practice. there is no "optimal way" of doing x operation, it either succeeds or doesnt. this is because all doctors use the same operations, WHICH IS A GOOD THING - for one, the operations will be successful, and secondly it would be stupid to risk lives free styling during surgeries. however, the truth is that while being a doctor is a DIFFICULT job, it doesnt require intelligence or talent, just dedication. doctors work with their hands, we work with our brains, so it inherently requires different types of people for these different jobs. I have friends still studying medicine right now, and what stands out to me is that their studies are structured extremely differently, because med school aims to convey knowledge instead of skill. these things are different, not better or worse, but just not the same. now, the reason I think that the type of person to happily spend 10+ years studying is arguably "dumber" than a traditional STEM student, is because of how the courses are structured. "C's get degrees" absolutely holds true in medicine - you only need to pass each unit at ~50% to complete the undergrad portion of med school. if you aren't talented within stem, you will simply get low tc, whereas as long as you finish med school you are guaranteed high tc due to the study requirements length. also, reports of how doctors manage to undertake challenging surgeries indicate that they pretty much just go into autopilot while their training takes over - I will happily acknowledge that this skill takes lots and lots of practice, but its not at all similar to active problem solving that happens during engineering. training for years and years so that a procedure becomes automatic != critical thinking skills to creatively bypass engineering problems. Sure, you could make the argument that leetcode is just practice the same way doctors practice / study for so long, but at the top end of swe there is an undeniable prerequisite for genuine underlying talent instead of 10+ (yes ten) years of study like doctors. This is evident in the fact that its ridiculously difficult to get into quant, then its pretty hard to get into faang, and then its the easiest thing in the world to get into New. Also, there is no "surgeon" bootcamp, whereas if you have the smarts to pass a coding bootcamp (one of the hard ones) you will be suited to the industry. also a significant number of doctors struggle with basic finance, as per a study that found that "medical residents and fellows have low levels of financial literacy and high debt." my theory therefore is that doctors are average people that dedicated themselves to grinding through med school (for whatever reason, financial or compassion to help people), and that the bar for med school is lower than eng hiring bars. TLDR: stop putting doctors on pedestals due to perceived intelligence and instead respect their dedication to saving lives because its not the same thing
Disagree. Doctors should be put on a pedestal regardless of intelligence. They are pretty damn close to doing god’s work and I can’t think of doing anything more meaningful in life. Source: Had 2 operations in my lifetime, it transformed my life beyond words
So you reworded the tldr but you disagree with the post
as a scientist and not an MD ... I think you're making a very superfluous assumption. If you think it's only memorization, perhaps you should consider a paramedic course to see first hand the problem solving skills an MD may require. They're not gods, but there are "10x" MDs; for example that can get you through a very challenging trauma via surgery
There are less rock star doctors because people are not allowed to innovate as much there, a lot of rules and for a good reason. Definitely there are rock stars in the field and other docs know about them
It’s probably of similar caliber, they are all hard sciences but a PHD in Physics and hardware engineering probably takes more ingenuity than med school since you’re involving math, coding too nowadays to model the real world aka MLE, FEA, etc. there’s almost no other discipline that requires so much skill and knowledge
Not true for multiple reasons: 1. Doctors do have different techniques. They follow the same overall algorithm but the implementation differs 2. Wtf there absolutely are rockstar doctors 3. Of course medical residents have low levels of financial literacy. Residents make like 60k. The fuck are they going to invest their $10 savings in? Even though all the points you bring up are nonsense, it's true that a lot of medicine is just learning and not skill. Fully expect this to be automated with some human oversight
OP, you know nothing about human body, you know nothing about medicine. Imagine debugging a huge program with no way to run real tests. Not all fields are the same but most seems intellectually hard. Surgery that you mention specifically seems hard physically and intellectually, plus requires superb dexterity and speed, that's just pure talent. No star doctors?? What?? This post just goes to show how detached and full of themselves techies really are.
chill dude Most SDEs just push config changes every now and then
What a load of rubbish for someone whose daily job is to say “have you tried switching it off and on again?” Stfu man.
This is unspeakably ignorant. Yes, there are rockstar doctors. Moreover, you seem to regard all doctors are surgeons. Wtaf? I suspect you do not know the difference between primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary care. You want rockstars? Check out quaternary care. If you’ve seen a team of elite physicians urgently trying one method after another to save a person’s life, and calling in yet more elite and specialized physicians, this whole post will look like the work of an imbecile. If even that. I regard the OP as far below par. Must be the engineering equivalent of an embalmer. I hope you never need the services of a rockstar doctor. But, if you do, hope to god you are near a quaternary care facility.
Too long