I've noticed in both the academic field and the medical field that there is a bias against generalists. In the small university where I teach, most of the newer faculty in my department are not only specialists, but really narrow specialists that pat me on the head (figuratively--if they did it literally, they'd lose a hand), and tell me to run along because I can't be as smart as they are because I'm a generalist.
Umm...I'm not the one that limits my students' writing topics to my narrow interests because "nobody can understand every topic a student might write about." I may not understand the sports stuff, but I can Google it. As for all of the other possible topics, well, I've got a good, solid, basic understanding of everything else my students have ever written about.
Enough of that though: the real irritation I've got this week is with doctors. My prenatal caregiver is a nurse midwife. She's competent, and I like her quite a bit. But when my blood tests came back with my thyroid abnormally low--like .15 points lower than the bottom of the scale low--she didn't feel comfortable prescribing me anything for it, or sending me anywhere but to a specialist.
Said specialist said I was okay to wait until November.
Look. I'm one of the dream(or nightmare) patients that look up and research everything about their own health. I know that a low thyroid can cause problems for me while I'm pregnant (beyond just being so tired my hair hurts), AND WORSE ONES FOR MY UNBORN BABY. It is unacceptable to not fix that NOW.
So, I called my GP (who my midwife was uncomfortable sending me to, because she's a generalist) at 4:30 on Tuesday. And told her receptionist what was wrong, and that I felt awful. My generalist got me in the next morning, and gave me a prescription that I could feel clearing my foggy brain as early as an hour after I took my first dose.
I won't say specialists can fuck off, but I will say their attitude that generalists aren't as smart or as good for most purposes can.
9 comments:
another academic generalist here, so let me just say "boo-yah!" to your FO.
My real one? Students who are blind to the fact that their actions had consequences, and that those consequences come back and bite them. And who then write me long rambling whiny e-mails talking about how everything is against them and they don't know what went wrong and just basically blaming everyone but themselves for their failure to get their shit together.
This is especially annoying to me because this has been a summer where I've nearly killed myself keeping my own shit together.
The other thing that pisses me off is that we're pretty much expected to have students do arranged research with us, and we can't tell someone "no" on the basis that they look like a bad risk for not having their shit together.
And this is also a person who kept promising me to GET their shit together and never did.
Yet another person who has lied, and lied blatantly to me. I'm so sick of people, I'd like to take six weeks vacation and go stay in a cave.
Good Lord, is it Friday already?
Oh yeah, fuck off to that attitude that only specialists can do anything. And Fuck Yeah! to generalists. Being a generalist is why I can implement any number of unrelated products into manufacturing, while the specialists can work on only one at a time (and why they continually have to ask me questions).
Long ago, I started using these definitions. A generalist knows nearly nothing about practically everything. A specialist know nearly everything about practically nothing.
HH, I'll endorse your FO on specialists. My experience is with engineers and scientists, but it's amazing how closely your experience parallels mine.
I'm a degreed engineer, but I never focused on any particular subject or specialty. But I do understand the broad subject, and can do research for details. Yet I'm treated like damaged goods around this dump. It's quite silly.
My personal FO goes to the incompetents in the O!bambi Administration who can't even argue their basic case coherently in front of a Democrat appointed judge.
And these fools think they can run this county?
No profound FO here -- I'm at a loss for words. Instead, I weep for the future.
As Robert Heinlein said: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects!"
My hit list this week:
--comment spammers,
--the public radio station for cutting the modern rock programming down to practically nothing (and no more radio broadcasting!) with little advance notice,
--endless (waves of) heat waves,
--people who take advantage of their relatives and make it look like love.
They can all fuck off.
(BTW, HH--the thyroid thing is touchy; it runs in my family. If you can take Armour natural thyroid instead of synthroid it's way better for you.)
HH I hear you on the specialists! I'm the only "Biologist" at work... the boss is a "Microbiologist" (and Coworker Ex is a "Micro and Molecular Biologist" so that means he's extra extra specialler than me). Whenever they get to talking they let me know I should just run along and play with my plants because obviously I can't handle their intense and manly concepts of bacteria. Never mind that neither of them can even spell bacteria...
Also, I can F off. I got my first speeding ticket today. :(
... sorry, Mom.
wv: rherstro: how Coworker Ex might try to spell "rested"
You stay away from their intense and manly concepts.
HH, I've reached the conclusion that way too many doctors are abject idiots, way too many won't take responsibility, and way too many people defer to anybody who has MD after their name. Yes, you have to look out for yourself. My sister nearly died from pre-eclampsia, despite her classic symptoms, because of her dumb OBGYN. Some doctors are great with healthy people; with sick people, not so much. Hurray for your GP.
My shoutout goes to me, for being such a pushover. The plant manager at the job I left in May called me this evening at 7:00 and miserably told me that he had been instructed by his boss to ask me to come in this weekend to show some people YET AGAIN how to inject samples on the GC. Which (a) is intuitively obvious if you take five minutes to look at the damn thing, (b) is described in the work instruction I left, and (c) is described in the software manual conveniently placed by me on the server under LABORATORY and INSTRUMENT MANUALS.
...I said I would. They are supposed to pay me. We'll see. I just couldn't tell him no.
Well, fuck off to this too. Not the comment itself, the reason for it. From a FB group for the city I grew up in:
You know you're from San Bernardino if you can point out at least 10 murder sites in a one-mile area....... or if your house is worth one-third what you paid for it......... other than that, it's a totally cool place to live
Damn, sucks how it's gone downhill since I lived there.
Ma-
1) You made me snort out loud. I have been staying away from their intense and manly concepts... why do you think I made such a terrible girlfriend? ;)
2)... Did they ever pay you for the last three times? Ma? Hello?
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