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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   2819 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 22, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC165701/

47 (9%) doctors were no longer on the Medical Register. They had lower A level grades than those who were still on the register (P < 0.001). A levels also predicted performance in undergraduate training, performance in postregistration house officer posts, and time to achieve membership qualifications (Cox regression, P < 0.001; b=0.376, SE=0.098, exp(b)=1.457). Intelligence did not independently predict dropping off the register, career outcome, or other measures. A levels did not predict diploma or higher academic qualifications, research publications, or stress or burnout. Diplomas, higher academic degrees, and research publications did, however, significantly correlate with personality measures.

Results of achievement tests, in this case A level grades, which are particularly used for selection of students in the United Kingdom, have long term predictive validity for undergraduate and postgraduate careers. In contrast, a test of ability or aptitude (AH5) was of little predictive validity for subsequent medical careers.

This is the best I could find with my Google-fu.

Medicine is usually brutally competitive and meritocratic to get into, or it certainly is in India, so there's a lot of filtering for g going on before people enter the training program.

I would be immensely surprised if IQ didn't correlate well with performance in the profession, as it does with job performance on pretty much anything anyone ever cared to check.

I don't deny that there's a great deal of memorization involved (I did say the same myself), but you have to keep in mind that med school != clinical medicine. As for "massively g-loaded", what's your definition for "massive"?

It certainly rewards tenacity and conscientiousness, especially when you clear the minimum IQ bar, and doctors are significantly above average, on average.

https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2002-hauser.pdf

At the top of the list, in the low 130’s, are either physicians and surgeons or professors and researchers, depending on the study you look at. The range amongst physicians and surgeons is tightly clustered, whereas the range for professors and researchers is broader. Below that, in the high 120’s are lawyers, followed by accountants in the low 120’s. Pharmacists average around 120 and nurses in the high 110’s. You can find a link to the full list with more professions in the description.

(Quoting the person quoting Gwern's post)

How much of that is due to pre-selection, and how much it matters after you're in? Shrug.

I think that the average researcher is way more determined than the average doctor - it's not uncommon for researchers to have been preparing for careers in research since they were in junior high school. I've known researchers who, as undergrads, answered emails and worked on projects from ER hospital beds. Well, one - but the rest of the lab didn't think it was that big a deal that her boss asked her to do work from the hospital bed and mildly reprimanded her for thinking it was a bit much.

Put it this way: plenty of researchers could do the equivalent of passing the anatomy final on day one of medical school. Very few doctors could have done the same.

I would be immensely surprised if IQ didn't correlate well with performance in the profession, as it does with job performance on pretty much anything anyone ever cared to check.

I actually believe this isn't the case so much, at least for the median. The reason for this is partially what you already mentioned, extreme pre-filtering. This is then combined with very generous compensation, practically ironclad employment security, limited opportunities for career advancement and a high work load. This strongly incentivices defection on the part of doctors.

I have no doubt that almost all doctors I meet are intelligent, whether they're a good doctor or not depends on whether they're diligent and actually interested in their work, not their relative intelligence within the doctor cohort.

This isn't unique to doctors either, mind you. It happens in all professions with sufficient compensation, status and employment security. People get satisfied and check out.

People get corrupted and intelligence isn't a protection against that. You can't really tell beforehand whose going to be a hard worker either.

I can believe that doctors average 130 IQ (though it seems a little high), and I totally expect that IQ correlates with performance.

Maths is far more g loaded than medicine. People who study maths will talk about eventually hitting a wall and no longer being able to progress. At a certain level you no longer have the cognitive power to comprehend the ideas.

I've never heard anyone talk in such a way about medicine. In medicine it seems like there is not much to "understand". Is it possible to get stuck on a question in medicine and not understand the answer? My impression is no. Are there 10x or 100x doctors? Doctors who can do things the average doctor can't?

Maths is far more g loaded than medicine. People who study maths will talk about eventually hitting a wall and no longer being able to progress. At a certain level you no longer have the cognitive power to comprehend the ideas.

yes, math is probably the highest g-loading, along with physics. This is why months back I argued that Elon is not as smart as top mathematicians and theoretical physicists, which got a lot of rebuke, but I think is still true.

Are there 10x or 100x doctors? Doctors who can do things the average doctor can't?

Unlike programming, doctors don't scale, so the impact of superlative talent is bounded. But in my experience, the best doctors end up becoming super-specialists, especially in surgery, and act as the last port of call when use normies don't cut it. So it's not that they can do everything significantly better than the average doctor, but they cover the cases we can't.

Is it possible to get stuck on a question in medicine and not understand the answer?

Not particularly, unless you're in research or doing something particularly complicated in neurology or biochemistry.

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