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Is anyone else caught in a weird Venn diagram of Imposter Syndrome and furious indignation and disdain for actual imposters in your field? (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 9 months ago by medgremlin@lemmy.sdf.org to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Context: I'm a second year medical student and currently residing in the deepest pit in the valley of the Dunning-Kruger graph, but am still constantly frustrated and infuriated with the push for introducing AI for quasi-self-diagnosis and loosening restrictions on inadequately educated providers like NP's from the for-profit "schools".

So, anyone else in a similar spot where you think you're kinda dumb, but you know you're still smarter than robots and people at the peak of the Dunning-Kruger graph in your field?

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[–] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think a lot of people in grad school go through something similar. Sometimes you get the imposter syndrome, and sometimes you get the sense that a lot of other people are imposters.

I cringe every time I hear someone in a professional setting say something like "we all have no clue what we are doing". Speak for yourself, lol, some of us know exactly what we are doing, and can tell you don't.

I guess the biggest piece of advice I can give is to just try your best to have a level confidence that matches your actual knowledge on a topic. Don't rely on your own expertise too much at this stage; if you think AI self-diagnosis is bad, find some research on it, and let that do any talking. Your biggest asset at this stage is scientific literacy, so use that.

MD's have all gone through the same experience, so they know what it's like. The thing that makes it a little harder in your field is that the very nature of being a medical doctor requires you to show confidence to your patients, and whether or not you are sure about something, you still have to make a decision to act (or not act). If a microbiologist doesn't have data to support their hypothesis, they can just say they dont have an answer and leave it at that.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

and sometimes you get the sense that a lot of other people are imposters.

Because a lot of people are. Especially people who end up in charge of things.

I mean, it's not like there hasn't been an entire cottage industry for churning out real, new research papers for rich fucks who don't actually know how to write a research paper for over twenty years. I had a friend who survived grad school in the early 2000's being paid to write research papers for idiot rich kids at more prestigious schools. They get to slap their name on original research and say "not plaigiarism, I'm a smart kid, I promise!" Add in a little Nepotism and you've got the fixings for some idiot in charge of something they shouldn't be.

You get the sense a lot of people are imposters because literally a lot of them actually are and their class of people has been growing and been being given the controls to society and they literally don't know what the fuck they are doing but they are in charge.

[–] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Yup. I agree 100%. For everyone person getting a hard degree (define that how you will) to actually learn skills, there's someone who has family connections who just needs the degree to check a box, or someone who has been privileged enough that they think they can "fake it till they make it" (and they end up being able to).

My job would be so much easier if everyone I work with had the skills their degrees would lead you to believe they have.

I once met a guy who was like 28, but he had a super impressive sounding resume with like 6 different jobs. I don't remember where, but think prestigious universities, big tech companies, federal agencies, etc. Everyone acted like he was a genius, but if you think about it, that's like 1 year per job. If he was that good, one of those places would have tried to keep him around longer. Depending on the field, 1 year isn't really enough time to have much impact, anyway. He basically just chained together buzzwords.