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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Replaceable and obeisant? You've watched too many movies. Skills learned while under stress will be with you when you are under stress again later. A doctor is trained under stress so that in the future, when their patients are about to die in front of them, that they react as trained. A doctor will see more blood, more death, than most soldiers. The parallels in stressed training are not insignificant, and have nothing to do with obedience.

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That's just not true. Being trained in a relentlessly stressful environment means that you're less likely to be creative, thoughtful, and empathetic in the solutions you come up with. It can also lead to learned helplessness -- a sense that things must be done the way they've always been done, because there's just not enough time and space from others to do things properly.

During residency they are dealing with patients dying in front of them. The stress is already there. I don't see why being sleep deprived is a benefit.

Basic training is literally about making them think and act certain way. It is literally about them all teaching exactly same set of super basic skills so that the soldiers are replaceable by the end by each other. There is reason why soldiers personality changes after basic training (that is what their families and partners say).

More complex skills are not taught in basic training, but later in specializations.

Under stress and duress and lack of sleep, people learn less. Moreover, while soldiers do in fact have to work in difficult physical conditions in action, doctors don't.

And I am not even sure what death on itself has to do with it. Conditions of encountering it are incredibly different in both professions.

“...Moreover, while soldiers do in fact have to work in difficult physical conditions in action, doctors don't. And I am not even sure what death on itself has to do with it. Conditions of encountering it are incredibly different in both professions.”

Try working in an inner city ER at night when it can often feel very similar to a war zone. Instead of sandbags and soldiers with rifles we’re surrounded by bulletproof glass and police officers.

That is nonsense argument. Doctors don't sleep in barracks or on grass, they go home to families. They eat what they choose to eat. They don't dig latrines. They don't have periods (days) of boredom full of made up work combining with short intensive assignments. They can leave the job.

Soldiers are not surrounded by bullet proof glass nor by police officers.

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