[citation needed]
Doctors as a general rule are very bad at listening to patients and our medical system simply does not track drug efficacy or side effects. You might be in a privilege situation to have never had to experience this, but there are millions of people who have.
And Drs. I know are great at listening! I'd honestly go as far as to say they listen too much at times; I don't tell a mechanic how to do his job, it's not my place to tell a Dr. how to fix me since I have literal 0 understanding of the human body.
Again, maybe its a socialized medicine vs privatized medicine problem, but it absolutely boggles my mind the level of distrust in what should be a respected profession.
My comments aren't meant to disparage, but point out that colloquial evidence is not a substitute for research and the scientific method. I will call baloney on people who spew it.
I think doctors are as good as their tools (education) and the feed back they get. They can only listen to what patients say, however most people aren't able to explain in detail what is going on. As well, western medicine tries to focus on specific locations/ailments and can miss the holistic portion of sickness. This challenge is compounded by the fact that many illness have similar symptoms and human bodies are intensely complicated.
I don't trust a doctor 100% (many of my friends do) however I do put a fair bit of faith in their training. Anything serious requires more research on my own as doctors are fallible.
The thought you raise that you shouldn't challenge or ask questions of what a doctor is telling you is quite alarming and I would wager that kind of laziness leads to poor health outcomes. As I said, doctors are human and are fallible, the research (i.e. human health systems) is not complete, and they are working on deeply complex issues that have incredible amounts of interactions that are unknown and incredibly challenging.
That said - the doctor better be able to explain in a straightforward manner in order to gain trust. And any profession that you should just "inherently trust" allows openings for laziness, abuse and bad outcomes. Strongly disagree with you.
There was also a supplemental private insurance market which covered a range of elective treatments. Best of both worlds!
Drs, nurses, and all other medical professionals are required to do training/recertification in my country. I "inherently trust" them because the system allows me to.
As for private vs. socialized, that will always be a point of contention. Some people want to be able to choose, but even being able to choose shows some amount of (and I hate this word) privileges. The vast majority of people simply do not have the financial means to "choose" a Dr in a privatized system; if they can even get access to one.
Why do we trust professionals so little?
My mechanic might know what to do, but his incentives can include things that are in opposition to mine, such making more money from an issue (real or not), doing less work, even getting more social attention and status for making their work more important.
By the way I'm an expert investment structured, and you might be interested in these neat things called CDOs I can hook you up with ..
All I am saying is that if they can't explain things better than take this pill, than I wouldn't trust them. Like I said, I trust their education (which is the certifications) but I will certainly run questions up the flagpole if I have them. They shouldn't be given "god like" carte blanche status in terms of no questions.
That last question is a tough one - I would wager it is because everyone knows someone who has had some bad experiences, and there have been many a story about seriously effed up medical experiences. Most people can't do statistics and then get deeply concerned that the likelihood that they might have bad experience then spills over into lack of trust. That's my two second hot take.
Do you distrust your co-workers if they make a single mistake?
I'm honestly skeptical of the claim based on my life experience. I've heard directly from people of numerous of terrible errors that destroyed their lives. e.g. bone implants that were poisonous, different implants that weren't sterilized properly, forced saving of patient life to charge/steal his assets instead of passing to family - direct from people I know well, that happened to them.
Then I've personally experienced a common pattern of doctors not being able to identify things that weren't common or obvious based on their flowchart style diagnosis. I've also experienced a lot of successful diagnosis of simpler obvious issues.