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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skinowski who wrote (543706)	10/19/2013 2:26:01 PM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Recommended By lightshipsailor Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793912

When I was still young, I was lucky enough to have learned an important lesson. I had a patient - an old, retired, very accomplished doctor in his upper 80's. Once, he came to my office with a stack of papers - lab and imaging reports, several consults and notes from specialists, etc. He was in a bit of trouble, and there were serious questions. I read the reports, and went on to explain to him what it was that the specialists were concerned about, and what they thought he should do, and so on. The man stopped me - he used to call me by my first name - looked me in the eye, and said "I don't care what they think, I came to find out what YOU think". That is a great story. It speaks to what true professionalism is about; it isn't the letters behind the name -- it is about a level of knowledge and judgment being well beyond that of the consumer. If we go to Walmart and buy a product we are able to determine the product's suitability. But when it comes to the professions -- medical, legal, etc., we as consumers are usually not competent to know good from bad or to understand the implications of the circumstances. It is like listening to a foreign language. After I went into practice as a CPA I quickly understood that the tax knowledge I had picked up in school was insufficient, so I decided to get into a Masters program taxation. When I met with the advisor explaining why I had decided to do this, he cut me off and said, "There are holes in your knowledge." This is a phrase that stuck with me ever since. There were holes you could drive a Mack truck through. The rigors of formal training help close (but don't eliminate) the holes. When it comes to medicine or the law or any of the professions, we need someone who can at least recognize the holes and who knows how to navigate. Just "common sense" will never be enough when critical issues are at stake.