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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jian" data-source="post: 9853757" data-attributes="member: 78087">No, this is entirely untrue and you’re speaking from a position of complete ignorance, I fear. Medical students have to learn a massive amount of information by rote initially - anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, neurology, pharmacology, epidemiology, just for starters - before they can start to learn to correlate that information into pattern recognition. You don’t learn any of this stuff at A-level and you have no functional diagnostic skills at 8 or 18. Sure, I had a good memory for facts and a skill for correlating trivia when I was 8 (as I do now) and while it’s a useful talent, diagnosis is completely different and a learned skill you don’t pick up until you’ve had at least five years of medical training.As for the profession in general, I of course find your generalisation highly insulting. I’m trained to recognise several thousand* common conditions and respond with several thousand common treatments. I’m trained to recognise red flags for thousands more uncommon conditions, and trust my instincts when nothing quite fits. This all takes up far more memory than anything else I know about and requires constant refreshing. This is true for most doctors, especially generalists like GPs. Rare and deceptive conditions are hard to diagnose and frequently not picked up, and I’m sorry it’s happened to your partner more than most, but I’m afraid that doesn’t necessarily reflect anything about the profession or the individual doctor who made the mistake that day.*Yes, I’ve counted.</blockquote>

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