Doctors

I'm in the initial stages on this, but I am thinking something dramatic has to be done about the power of doctors to control the care that patients receive. See, I wouldn't feel so strongly about it, but for the fact that medicine, while it pretends to be cutting edge, is in many ways in its infancy. So it begs the question, if doctors don't really know what they're doing, why should what they say/decide trump what the patient knows? I'm reminded of a story I told this afternoon about a former otolaryngologist who told me my ears, medically-speaking, were not stuffed up when in fact, they had felt severely stuffed-up (to the point of pain) for weeks and I needed to take a flight so I finally went in to see whether I could go. He didn't propose an alternate theory, an explanation, suggestions for care etc. Clearly, something was wrong. But because he couldn't identify it, he sent me on my way, essentially telling me I was mistaken about the very real medical problem I was having. I have an infinite number of these stories, as I imagine many people do. I believe it's a combination of pride, lack of knowledge about other specialities where symptoms may mimic issues mistaken for that specialty, denial about lack of information in the medical sciences, and a fear that should patients know how little doctors know, chaos would reign.