Doctors aren't machines, they're humans. I have not yet read the full paper, only the article, but I already see something really big and important to look out for. When I read the full thing, the question I'll be asking is "what's the likelihood that the self-esteem of doctors was directly intervened on by the exam taking process itself." How do you control for the loss in confidence that learning of your test performance gives you? How are we certain that learning your score on the board exam doesn't make you more conservative (or riskier) with how you treat patients as a psychological effect?
This appears to be an observational result, so I'm genuinely perplexed by the reception here. I genuinely thought this comment shows a healthy amount of curiosity and asking important questions. Asking "what control group did this study use?" is usually well-received here.
Yeah but the patient is just a biological machine. This machine can easily be divided into organs and apportioned among specialists. The machine is easily understood by a corpus of research and laboratory experimentation.
. Many inputs can be placed in the machine by physicians, and the outputs are known. The biological machines can easily be isolated from environment, or monitored with high technology, and assigned numbers in databases to be processed in data centers.
Value is extracted from the biological machines mostly from government and 3rd party sources, so there is no real need to rely on machines having a means or will of their own.
There is no compelling reason to treat humans any different from automobiles for the purposes of medicine and medical treatment. In fact humans are less genetically diverse than motor vehicles, and A new model year will always produce a bumper crop of lemons to work on.
The common misconception of someone with a hard science education.
> Many inputs can be placed in the machine by physicians, and the outputs are known. The biological machines can easily be isolated from environment, or monitored with high technology, and assigned numbers in databases to be processed in data centers.
We aren't even close to that level of understanding.
And still, the model works. Lives are saved. We might save many more with a fully integrated non-simplified approach, but it’s not necessary to keep seeing growth in positive outcomes.
