I blame both on excessive use of antibiotics as a 5 - 8 yr old.
I walked on my tippy toes for example, and lost flexibility in my ankles. Rather than, you know, stretch and exercise my ankles… My Achilles’ tendons were cut and stretched, then I was in casts with my ankles extended for quite a while.
Nothing was really physically wrong, I was just a weird kid.
Western medicine is both miraculous and barbaric
My brother toe walks and they just let him walk.
Anecdata: Root canal, antibiotics, and first Crohns indications in the span of 10 days for me.
Medical failure in the literature is a jargon term. (Internal) medicine and surgery are traditionally two distinct fields of, er, medicine. So it is just a matter of fact that a disease such as Crohn's that is refractory or resistant to treatment with medicine is a "medical failure" - no spin on it, that's what we call it.
Biases in referral across services is a complicated topic, and there is quite a bit of literature about it over the years. I am not sure about Crohn's/IBD specifically, but it's one of the well known co-management touch-points between surgery and GI, so there might be something written on the subject. There are many complexities at play here, some is definitely due to human factors, but the simple thought of "medical failure" doesn't have much to do with it. The average internists make thousands of consults to surgery every year, so that's really not it, there's much more to it.
Speaking of complexities, I'm fairly sure the GI who did not refer me was married -- so he told me I'm 98% sure -- to a pharmaceutical salesperson who sold GI related infusions (and he got me in a perhaps unrelated study). There were other manner-related problems. .. Does not change my profound regard for MDs in general. (Have worked with MD/PhDs, wouldn't be alive without some interventions, very dedicated care, etc.) Be well.