Paul Conti

This happens in the VA system.

It happens in other systems too.

So you might've touched their care and no one's even saying you did anything wrong, but they say the next person did.

Oh, someone settled on your behalf and now you have a malpractice.

and maybe you can't get a license somewhere else.

Doctors are terrified and they're terrified for good reason because the same society that has given doctors in many ways too much power over time and treated doctors maybe too much like gods now is I think enacting some of society's anger and envy out on the physicians.

Even the idea that a person would know what medicine, like I saw a couple of TV commercials, give me this.

It's interesting, right?

Because even if—let's say I take myself out of it.

It doesn't feel good, obviously, but it takes a while.

It's like, wow, I went to school for eight years for this, and you don't even want to hear my opinion, right?

You're not taking good care of yourself, right?

It doesn't mean you should think my opinion is gospel because I said it.

But people then don't have an understanding of, like, what is expertise?

What do people learn?

How can people help us understand and make better decisions?

It kind of goes out with the wash and then—

The position of the expert, I mean, a lot has been written about this, right?

Gets diminished over time very much to our own peril.

And then often with aggression in the medical world, coming back towards the alleged expert.