Scary. But very credible.
Not child abuse but an example of over-inflated egos at work. A couple of years ago I was being treated by the physical therapy department at the VA hospital for problems with my hip. (Which has since been replaced.) The therapist couldn't understand why it wasn't responding better to PT, so she went away, grabbed a book, leafed through it, and said she thought I had a torn labrum.
That led to a referral to orthopedics. The orthopedic doctor looked at some x-rays and pronounced that there was no possibility of a torn labrum. I reminded him of the therapists concerns, and his response was, "She's a only physical therapist. I'm a doctor."
I mentioned that to the therapist at my next session and she laughed. She said, "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I am a doctor."
I later took the same x-rays to a sports medicine doctor outside of the VA system and he agreed completely that I had a torn labrum. That was the good news -- now we know what's wrong. The bad news -- surgery to repair it isn't effective at my age.
Back to the topic -- too many doctors have vastly over-inflated notions of their own importance and expertise. As the late Ann Landers once wrote, "Remember -- fifty percent of the doctors in this world graduated in the bottom half of their class at medical school."
