Jan 26

Jan 26 Training and Specialties Matter: Let's Trust the Experts!

My son recently had a fender bender that cracked the radiator, wrecked the tire alignment, ruined the front bumper, and smashed one headlight, dislodging the battery. His car needed an extensive $5200 repair, so we took it to a collision repair shop we’ve used in the past. It took a few days of evaluation to tease out all the problems, and my son was without transportation for over a week. But we trusted them to fix our car, and they did! They did exactly what they were trained to do, and we are so grateful for their service.

You call a plumber when you have a leak in your house. You visit a salon to have your hair dyed and cut (and you would NEVER see a different stylist!). You have your HVAC maintained and repaired by an HVAC specialist. You take your car to a mechanic you trust. And I know you’re not seeing just anyone on the street to have your teeth cleaned—you see a dental hygienist!

That’s because each of these people is specialty-trained in their area of expertise. We trust and rely on them to provide a service that we KNOW we can’t do on our own. When we need help, we call the professional.

I bet you can see where I’m going with this, right?

Training and specialties matter!

A doctor completes four years of undergraduate college, four years of medical school, then somewhere between three and ten years of specialized residency and fellowship training (during which they work an average of 60-80 hours per week) before heading into practice on their own. At the beginning of their time in medical school, your doctor took an oath to ‘First, do no harm.’ And they maintain their licensure with medical board certification at least every 10 years (a verrrrry long and expensive test) as well as 150 hours of continuing medical education every two years. Their training and expertise is built upon evidence-based science and a ‘gold-standard’ of care that is continually evolving and updating on the backs of thousands of medical researchers who each specialize in their one or two specific areas of interest.

So, why? Why in the world does anyone trust the health of their one precious, beautiful, and highly complex human body to the internet? To influencers? To strangers? To people who very much did NOT take an oath to ‘first, do no harm’? To marketers who, despite their flowery messaging, are mostly trying to make a monetary profit from their followers’ illness and pain?

These days, everyone is an expert. Especially on highly controversial (thus highly shareable) topics using buzz words like perimenopause, bioidentical, “all-natural” hormone, testosterone pellets, adrenal fatigue, ovary support (I could go on and on and ON here).

But you don’t trust your car to an influencer just because that influencer also happens to own a car. So, PLEASE do not trust the health of your one, beautiful body to the internet!

The reason your doctor doesn’t offer pellets or compounded hormones or super high doses of testosterone to treat your perimenopause isn’t because they are stupid or want to deprive you, it’s because these treatments do not have evidence-based support (i.e. real science) to back it. It’s because your doctor CARES about you. Your doctor practices GOOD medicine. And your doctor took the oath to FIRST, DO NO HARM very seriously.