Why Doctors Think They’re The Best

A sharp selection-effects explanation of why ~90% of doctors think they're above average, via 7 clinical mechanisms: (1) your patients' last doctor was worse (good doctors retain patients, so you only meet other doctors' dissatisfied ones); (2) your patients love you (satisfied ones stay); (3) patients arrive visibly but leave invisibly (the dog that doesn't bark); (4) you've successfully treated most current patients (failures left); (5) you catch others' errors but by definition not your own; (6) victories are yours, failures are 'treatment-resistant Nature'; (7) you optimize the tradeoffs/values you care about, so your patients beat others' on your metrics. Closes by asking whether other customer-selected professions share this.

Quality 75 · Excellent. A clean, genuinely insightful, well-generalized applied-epistemics essay -- each selection mechanism illuminates, grounded in real clinical experience. Excellent (lower).

Claude’s paradigm shift 50 · Moderate. Moderate. A fresh, exported selection-effects synthesis explaining a well-known overconfidence finding.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. A clean, genuinely insightful applied-epistemics essay explaining via seven selection mechanisms why ~90% of doctors think they're above average. Conceptual influence within epistemics discourse, no material change — low RWI.