Doc, I hear you. I have family that went through what you did, came out the other side and are also not rich. It is, as I said above, a culture and, also as you indicated, one quite similar to our military.
At least you tried to empathize. There just too many conditions for which institutionalized medicine has no answers.
The outsider modalities, the ones not recognized within the culture, try to explain their successes after the fact, by working backwards.It’s deduction and there are no tests, just a wealth of anecdotal experience, which, as we are constantly reminded, is not data.
I’m retired. I wonder if institutional medicine will ever become inclusive of the modalities that work despite not being quantifiable for painful and debilitating conditions which are also not quantifiable.
Like any profession, medicine has all sorts. Increasingly, for patients, it’s just a lottery as to which type you’ll get.
Enjoyed your well-written summary.
Perhaps it is just expectations. When your job is making life and death decisions it may be difficult for some people who would otherwise be fairly normal to consider yourself some kind of god. Especially if you don’t recognize the true God. This probably lends itself to the expectation that a patient may form that you have an answer for every question. While you may have an answer for many questions and a suggestion for treatment of many problems only He has all the answers.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Easy, actually, so He can make even better things happen.