No-one knows what they are doing

One thing I notice in some rhetoric (not necessarily yours) is the idea that people are static. That if one is clueless now, they'll always be clueless.

People continuously evolve personally and professionally. The road to mastery and understanding always begins with confusion and uncertainty. It's totally reasonable that a student learning complex theoretical material will have a hard time, initially, with the day-to-day grind of doing practical work in a job.

Many workplaces have unreasonable expectations usually framed around the vaguely militaristic notion that their people have to "hit the ground running". It's based on bull. The only way to progress towards mastery is to periodically do stuff that one is "unqualified" for, sometimes that involves failure, re-tries, wasted time, and being seen as incompetent.

So many folks who are now "ninja's", "rockstars", or "10x-ers" started out as clueless newbs who were willing to put themselves out there, make embarrassing mistakes, be called cargo-cult practitioners, and who nonetheless continued with grit. Along the way, some helped and mentored them and others dismissed them.

Small nitpick on this statement that makes a significant difference to me. I think the spirit of what you are saying is that "Experts are far more accessible than ever"

The youtube video that helped you, your neighbor, the instruction manual, are all sources of expert information. In earlier times people would have to find the right book in a library, or travel the world in search of an expert.

You are still trusting experts, which implies that they exist, which is different than assuming "well, some guy on youtube could do it - so it cant be that hard ill figure it out myself". you are instead acknowledging that the "guy on youtube" is an expert that you thankfully have access to because of youtube

The statement is not intended as an attack against the medical professions or the effectiveness of medicine. It is intended as pointing out my observation that, typically, a doctor would list such iatrogenic causes very low on their list of differentials to consider, preferring to consider 'textbook' causes first. However, my own experience (which, is medical, but admittedly "anecdata") is that at present, iatrogenic causes are very relevant, and at least as likely, if not more, to yield a relevant diagnosis compared to textbook stuff in a high proportion of presentations.

A classic example of this is doctors treating symptoms by adding more medication/treatment options, rarely removing medications/treatments that may be causing those symptoms in the first place. Especially if that medication was started by a different specialist. It usually takes several rounds of inconclusive investigations and experimenting with treatments before altering an existing medication is even considered.

At the very least, having a "exclude iatrogenic causes first, before moving on to 'classic' stuff" is a good mindset to have.

> Furthermore, a patient can suffer from iatrogenic harm even if everything was done correctly, and does not imply that someone didn't "know" something correctly.

There's a popular quote often said to medical students when they start: "50% of what we'll be teaching you will have become obsolete or proven wrong by the time you graduate; unfortunately we don't know which 50%.".

This is then exaggerated by sayings such as "it takes half a year to get to full speed" in an attempt to either try and lowball learners, or as a defense mechanism as to why society should just cater to the whims of companies so they don't have to carry the risks. Despite the fact most people will be profitable very shortly after they get hired in a job remotely fitting them, if the company has any proper documentation on procedures.

[0]: And this is bad for the more anxious / modest / shy people. "Fake it till you make it" should be good advice, but it doesn't overcome massively inflated "must have but not actually must have" lists discouraging them on the spot, or the hundreds of mismatched job interviews and time wasted. I still don't know who benefits from the status quo aside from middlemen getting jobs that shouldn't realistically exist.

The chefs cooking your meals at restaurants would disagree.

Your surgeon would definitely disagree.

I could go on.