I know the answer to the question posed. They are HUMAN. That is what is wrong with them. As much as we would like to think they are ALL knowing, they are not.

They are not all of the same caliber, they did not ALL finish at the top of their class, they did not all specialize, etc.

Just imagine all the things they are suppose to know. It is mind boggling to say the least. No one could possibly know everything about all the complexities of the human body and that is why there are so many specialties. But once they specialize, they don't keep up on the things outside of their specialty. (Some don't keep up on things IN their specialty.) Some specialties are very broad while others span a much smaller area of expertise.

It is no wonder we as patients get so frustrated with doctors at times. We expect them to have all the answers and many times we do not get them.

Add to the mix the fact that we as patients don't speak the same language as doctors. What WE say to them may mean something entirely different than what we are trying to convey and vice versa.

Before the days of such access to information that we have available now, especially on the internet and through forums such as this one, we had no way of knowing anything and just accepted whatever a doctor said more or less. Now we have access to information and that can be good and bad.

On one hand, we are at a distinct advantage over our docs, as we not only are LIVING with and FEELING our conditions, but we also have the capability of doing extensive research on it. Ever feel like you know more about your disease than your doctor? Maybe you actually do because all your focus is on that ONE condition where your doctor has to spread his mind over many topics and usually does not have the same amount of time available to him as some of us do.

On the other hand, they are still the ones that spent many years studying and perfecting their skills to the best of their ability and they should know a lot more than we do. Sometimes they just don't take the time to tell us what all is going on in their mind and we think they don't know what they are doing or they are not listening to us. In some cases, we are correct to make those assumptions.

Even though this may sound like "A DEFENSE of DOCTORS", it is just to provoke some thought and understanding on our part before we kick them to the curb unjustly. Some need to be kicked to the curb and we need to take our bodies and health concerns elsewhere but sometimes we are just frustrated and understandably so.

Just think for a minute how many drugs are on the market that they need to know about and in depth, the number of laboratory tests, the number of diseases, the over lapping symptoms of various diseases, the interactions of various body functions, and the list goes on and on.

So what has prompted me to write this post? I am very frustrated that a number of doctors have not been able to alleviate one of my symptoms nor give me an explanation or cause of it. So finally I began doing some of my own research and found that it is a lot more difficult than I had thought. I don't understand a lot of what I read. Most of my prior research has always been to learn more about a condition or disease for which I have already been given a diagnosis. This is a first for me,...... to try to "self" diagnose. Not a territory that I want to rely upon but thought I would give it a try just out of my frustration.

In conclusion, there are some good docs and some not so good. We have to ferret them out for ourselves. Just because a doc does not always have the answer does not necessarily make him a bad doc. Maybe he is just a human.