In 2015, I met with Cochran, and I asked him why it was that doctors so often dismissed patients with vague symptoms. “The reason is this—you’re coming to me, and my stock-in-trade is expertise. You’re coming to me because I have this brain full of stuff that you need. But if my brain can’t do what it needs to do, then I’m a fraud, or a flawed doctor, or inadequate, or stupid, and that ain’t easy on me, because I’ve always made A’s in chemistry, I’ve always passed my boards, I’ve always been high on the food chain of knowledge acquisition and management. It doesn’t feel good to me, to be
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