Someone's doctor finished at the bottom of the class.
The normal distribution is the limiting distribution of a random quantity which is the sum of smaller, independent random phenomena. In other words, some doctors are good, some bad, but most fall in the middle. According to one study1 male doctors have an IQ range of 110-135 placing them all in the top quartile or among the top 25% of IQs. Sorry ladies, but the study did not include women doctors. That is good news, right? But what other factors contribute to the quality of your doctor?
Even Einstein believed creativity is more important than knowledge. The more educated you are the more your mind is confined to limited associations - shaped to conform. All this stifles creativity and your ability to improvise and invent. Is your doctor creative, can she think outside the proverbial box?
Is your doctor influenced by greed? The Journal of the American Medical Association claims doctors are bribed by pharmaceutical companies. Some bribes include luxurious vacations, tickets to shows and dinners, and others are small gestures, free samples and pens. Nevertheless, a doctor overtly or subtly feels obligated2 to prescribe a particular medicine.
Of the top four smartest professions, doctors, lawyers, educators and engineers, doctors smoke more cigarettes3. In fact, doctors also smoke more than managers, financiers, scientists and social workers – all considered less intelligent based on IQ scores. Does your doctor smoke and what does that say about their decision making abilities? More important, do you believe your doctor or doctors in general are above average?
Lake Wobegon is the fictional world of Garrison Keillor where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." This fictional world aptly illustrates our tendency to see ourselves as above average and has been observed4 among drivers5, college students, parents, and doctors, among others. Your doctor, the doctor you see hocking pills on TV and the doctor who claims chemical sunscreens prevent melanoma are as likely to be below average as above.
"Exposing yourself to sunlight is the most important source of vitamin D. Sunlight is far more likely to provide you with your vitamin D requirement than food is."
~ Dr. Jack D'Angelo, The Richmond (New York) County Medical Society, as printed in a letter on getting adequate vitamin D titled, "Think of vitamin D as the sunshine vitamin" on Staten Island Live.
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1 Hauser, Robert M. 2002. "Meritocracy, cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success." CDE Working Paper 98-07 (rev). Center for Demography and Ecology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin. http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf
2 Cialdini, R. B. (2001). The science of persuasion. Scientific American, 284, 76-81.
3 2006 to 2008 SAMHSA National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUHs).
4 Aronson, Wilson, Akert 2010, "Most of us have moderate to high self-esteem. Like the mythical residents of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, we need to believe that we are above average. For example, in a survey of a million high school students, only 2 percent stated that they were below average in their leadership ability (Gilovich 1991)", Social Psychology, 150: 9780138144579
5 Svenson, Ole 1981, "We are all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers", Acta Pyschologia, 47: 143-8
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