Pretend stupid
Tuesday, October 7 2008
My interaction with Peter reminded me that, as a matter of fact, I don’t want to be too uncivil in this blog. Calling docs “stupid” is probably over the line, so I do apologize to him and to the doc before him.
In that spirit, I want to point to this week’s Grand Rounds from 911doc at M.D.O.D. I’m pretty sure 911doc isn’t stupid: I bet he knows full well that the posts at Canadian Medicine and Colorado Health Insurance Insider aren’t satire – he just doesn’t like what they have to say. Instead he calls them “satire”, and links to Wikipedia because that totally proves him right. This may seem like a clever move to him, but it’s not exactly brimming with intellectual rigor.
Sick people like to think our doctors are smart and selfless and heroic, but all too often that’s a comforting fiction. Lots of doctors are smart and selfless and brave, but lots of doctors are just as prone to the vices of human nature – selfishness, foolishness, laziness, cowardice – as anyone else. And for some reason, the latter sort of doctor has flocked to the blogosphere. (I hope to god it’s because they don’t find the rest of their profession sympathetic to their idiosyncrasies.)
So then: “Trust us, we’re doctors”? 911doc probably is an actual doctor, but he is all too painfully ordinary a human being: probably not stupid, but not above pretending to be.
Nicely written, and thanks for backing me up. I was surprised to see my article described as satire, but I suppose that’s bound to happen whenever we take on controversial subjects.