They gather enough information that they can classify a patient into a storyline and they follow that storyline. If someone adds a new complication to the storyline, they adopt that. If the patient lives, they are happy. If the patient dies, they are sad.
Trying to explain to them that we have, today, the tools to concretely rethink all the data about cancer or infectious disease, or inflammatory conditions, or all the above, in innumerable ways, simply escapes them.
You can tell them you're funded and have petabytes of data and they just smile and nod and say "Oh, well, start with something small and build up."
I say this as a board-certified specialist. My colleagues drive me nuts. And the more powerful (read, "senior") they are, the less they understand.