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Having spent quite a bit of time around a couple of those groups, I find most of those degree requirements and certifications as just ways to increase salaries, more than ways to increase quality. Many people pass state bars and are incompetent. Lawyers that go through residency get lazy and kill patients, and they aren't magically superior to someone that isn't allowed to work in, say, the US, because their medical training was done the wrong country.

Realistically, licensing boards are there to protect their members, and rarely do political things against people in the same body with unpopular opinions. You have to be catastrophic for most boards to do anything about you: Just like a police union will defend a union member that has committed gross negligence unless the evidence is public.

When you hire a doctor for something actually important, you don't look at the certification body: You look at long term reputation, which you also do in software. Only the largest of employers will leetcode everyone as a layer of fairness. In smaller employers, direct, personal references replace everything, which is what I'd go with if I needed an oncologist for a very specific kind of cancer. The baseline of aptitude from the certification body doesn't matter there at all.



> Many people pass state bars and are incompetent. Lawyers that go through residency get lazy and kill patients, and they aren't magically superior to someone that isn't allowed to work in, say, the US, because their medical training was done the wrong country.

So we need the barrier to entry to be even lower for such professions that deal with life-changing outcomes? I don't think so. In such high risk fields: "long term reputation" is totally dependent on hiring extremely qualified individuals.

The barrier to entry MUST be continuously raised with the bare minimum requirement of a degree. Only then the secondary requirements can be considered.

> When you hire a doctor for something actually important, you don't look at the certification body: You look at long term reputation, which you also do in software.

I don't think you can compare the two. Since one deals with high risk to the patient such as life and death and the other in most does not. (Unless the software being written deals with safety critical systems in a heavily regulated setting.)

From what you are saying, maybe you would be OK consulting a surgeon or an oncologist that has never gone to medical school.




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