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Comment by borismus | Hacker News Reader

I think he's trying to say that learning is good. Hard to refute that one :)

But... "Would you be comfortable going to a physician if you learned they hadn’t read any new findings in years?"

When's the last time you went to a family doctor that stays up-to-date with life science research?

Maybe it's not the norm, but I've read about new findings in the past, mentioned them to my family doctor and found that he's familiar with the same studies.

Like developers, I'm sure there are doctors who just do their 9-5 and go home, while others continue to study, attend conferences and discuss new techniques with other doctors. Also similarly it's hard for the people who hire them ("us") to differentiate between them unless we have domain specific knowledge or someone who does and we trust to recommend a good doctor.

That's an interesting point you bring up. Differentiating doctors is even harder than differentiating developers because at the least, developers can show you their work/portfolio. But for doctors, what are the external indicators of goodness? Perhaps, having intelligent conversations with each one might tell you something but even that is merely a fraction of the whole picture. I'd be interested in reading studies about how people pick their doctors (historically and now). Opinions of friends would probably be an important factor. And perhaps, race too.

My uncle is a specialist and when I visited him a few years ago and asked what he did for fun/off-work - he pointed at the piles and stacks of journals on his specialty. Continuing Medical Education (CME) helps ensure all board-certified doctors keep their skills current.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_medical_education

If there is one thing I learnt from coming from a family of doctors is that it doesn't matter if your doctor graduated from Harvard Medical School, or a public university in a third world country. What does matter is that the doctor's a fellow at a reputable institution. The well read doctors, who keep studying their whole careers, are the good ones (and in most cases than not, the popular ones). If your doctor doesn't, I'd be wary about his diagnosis for anything other than a common cold.

This is the reality (and also what the article points to). Doctors who don't keep up are the sheep, the same as programmers that learn some stuff in college and spend decades in the corporate world building buzzword resumes. Doctors who do keep up are the cutting edge developers and entrepreneurs either making bazillions of dollars, making the word a better place, or at least being happy knowing you're one of those at the top instead on one of those to scared to climb the mountain.

I know your questions are not directed to me, but I just have to answer them: 1) No I wouldn't be comfortable going to a physician that's not well read and informed on the greatest and latest. My family of doctors also operated a series of medical book stores, which I managed for a few years and spent half the time reading the medical books. If a doctor can't answer the simplest things I got out of 5~10 year old books he should have in his library anyways, I'm leaving ASAP. 2) Last Tuesday. The Dentist is actually really well read. She always tells me about the new interesting stuff she's read.

Not just that learning is good, but that continuous learning is necessary to remain relevant, and to not be a drag on everyone that interacts with you.

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