People often assume that because doctors all go through years of education and training, their skills must be essentially the same. I once had someone tell me, “One stellate ganglion block is as good as another.”
But that assumption couldn’t be further from reality.
We don’t make this mistake in other professions. We recognize that training gets you in the door — but talent, practice, and mastery separate the good from the great.
Obvious Differences in Sports and Driving
Take basketball. I can play at the gym, but I would never compare myself to an NBA player. We both know the rules of the game, we both can dribble and shoot, but the gap in execution is enormous. One entertains millions, the other just hopes to make a few shots in a pickup game.
Or think about driving. I know how to drive a car — I can get from home to work safely. But I could never control a NASCAR at 200 miles per hour, weaving through competitors, managing tire wear, and making split-second decisions. Both are “driving,” but they are worlds apart in skill and precision.
The same is true in other fields: lots of people play guitar, but only a handful can fill stadiums with a performance. Every licensed chef can prepare food, but there’s a vast difference between a short-order cook and a Michelin-starred chef.
We easily see these differences because the results are on display: scores, lap times, sold-out concerts, and rave reviews.
Why It’s Harder to See With Doctors
When it comes to doctors, the differences are just as real — but much harder to recognize.
- No scoreboards. Doctors don’t get ranked weekly on outcomes, and their performance isn’t televised.
- Delayed feedback. A patient may only know weeks or months later whether a treatment helped, and rarely has a direct comparison to another doctor’s care.
- Complex outcomes. Results depend not only on the doctor, but also on the patient’s biology, condition severity, and many other variables.
- Invisible precision. You can watch a three-point shot or a car on a racetrack, but you can’t see whether a needle tip is a millimeter closer to the right structure — even though that difference may decide success or failure.
This invisibility makes it easy for people to assume, “a doctor is a doctor.” But medicine is no different from sports, music, or racing: mastery matters.
Stellate Ganglion Block as an Example
Take stellate ganglion blocks (SGB). All pain doctors may be trained to do the procedure, but how it’s done can vary enormously:
- Precision matters. A few millimeters in needle placement can mean the difference between full relief, partial benefit, or no result at all.
- Tools matter. Some physicians use advanced imaging like ultrasound or fluoroscopy for accuracy and safety, while others may not.
- Experience matters. A doctor who has performed thousands of SGBs develops instinct and judgment that can’t be taught in a textbook.
- Insight matters. A physician who understands how the sympathetic nervous system connects to conditions like PTSD or Long COVID may tailor the procedure differently than one who only thinks of it for classic pain syndromes.
The Takeaway
Just as not all basketball players are Steph Curry, not all guitarists are Eric Clapton, and not all drivers are Dale Earnhardt Jr., not all doctors perform at the same level.
The difference is obvious in sports and music because you can see it. In medicine, the difference is harder to spot — but for patients, it can mean everything. One stellate ganglion block might fail, another might help a little, and another could be life-changing.
That’s why it’s worth recognizing: one SGB is not the same as another, and one doctor is not the same as another.