What is it about going to the doctor that turns perfectly rational adults into sniffling idiots? Personally, I get sweaty and nervous and let my doctor make all the decisions. I don’t like shots, even though I give blood all the time, and long for the nurse to ask me what color band-aid I want after I suffer through them. I revert to the mindset I had about doctors when I was a kid: they are big and I am small; they are smart and I am dumb; they are right and I am wrong. It’s like Matilda on an adult scale.

I’ll admit that I don’t go to the doctor as often as I should. I think it’s mostly because I get sniffly and sweaty and nervous, even though I know that I shouldn’t. For most of us—myself included—doctors are on some sort of a pedestal where they can do no wrong. I don’t feel like I can have a conversation with them because I will never be on their level. Instead, I need to take whatever advice they choose to give me.

How has it come to be this way?

First off, the United States has terrible healthcare compared to other first world nations. As we well know, we don't have universal healthcare so that makes health care for the uninsured really, really expensive. But before medical malpractice insurance prices skyrocketed, private healthcare meant that doctors could become extremely wealthy. And we know that more than intelligence, class or accomplishments, Americans will lend their ears to people with money.

But perhaps we should start questioning our doctors more. The United States’ healthcare system is extremely inefficient and costly. For example, the United States pays almost double other wealthy nations to care for longevity, but the average life expectancy for Americans is 42^nd in the world. In 2000, the World Health Organization ranked the United States first in cost, but 72^nd in effectiveness in healthcare out of the 190 countries in the study.

So what’s up? Why do we still treat doctors with such reverence when they must be part of the problem?

I can’t explain the failings of the United States’ healthcare system, but I do think that peoples’ blind faith in doctors is part of the problem. Accountability plays a huge part in the success of any profession, so perhaps if big shot lawyers and accountants and business people didn’t become big children again when getting a doctors’ advice, everyone would be getting more bang for his or her buck.