Medicine isn't science because science is not as advanced as many would think. The lack of workplace integration is also a big factor.

I don't think we discourage second opinions, except maybe in some for-profit structures. The bad idea is to have multiple people making decisions in parallel. I'm not in the US, though.

Regarding advocacy, I don't think it's so crazy. It's very good to have a valid interlocutor when the patient is diminished. Also, hospitals are big systems with limited personalization. If someone's there to call out the system when it's trying to shoehorn too hard, it's also very good.

Enjoy the privilege of seeing multiple doctors as long as you still can. With steady cost reduction (AI, automation, less effort per patient) and increase in medical authoritarianism ("expert said so") that privilege is on thin ice. In the UK it's already normal to have a single area-designated doctor you're allowed to go to, and that doctor is also a gatekeeper to refer you to specialists. Hope he likes you! Beyond that, AI diagnosis would likely require an extensive medical online profile of you. Such e-med profiles obviously already exist in various countries, as opt-out features. In the name of cost reduction through automation, I'll be so free and call it: These profiles will become mandatory over the next ten years. Either way, good luck getting a second opinion once a false diagnosis ended up in your file or once AI continuously misidentifies a pattern present there.

I was semi-retired two years ago and decided to do a LPN program to work part time, do something physical, something that felt like a moral win and good for society.

I would have had no problem intellectually getting through the program but quit after the first night in a hospital.

Anyone sitting at a desk can not understand how tough and miserable a nursing job is. Everyone is basically miserable and stressed out. The work is completely thankless, disgusting and dangerous with personal liability on the line if you make a mistake. Everything that we take for granted in an office setting just doesn't apply in a medical setting.

I eventually just went back to a bullshit project management job, for more money than a nurse of course. This is obviously part of the problem.

It is easy to complain about the system when it is someone else who has to help grandma to the bathroom. There is no easy solution for any of this given the demographics. It is basically a disaster.