My point(s) would remain: the PDR-mandated 'procedures' are very often NOT the most efficacious ones known to mankind. And even these are withheld from an astonishingly vast number of citizens (not to even mention the many non-citizens - without whose labours we'd all have to learn what 'a day's Hard Work' means).
We have the very Best of the known techniques: in a few specialties. In that I agree with Hugh's admirably brief summation. We also have much more disinformation than useable information re Why.. (say) our cancer rates are huge and increasing at alarming rates: that is, the rate-of-increase of breast cancer is just One of these runaway areas. This apart from: "how efficacious are the Big3 ONLY-solutions" dispensed here? That is a separate question from, how artfully these procedures are usually practised and how generally available.
I believe that the lack of *believable* and solidly relevant Information about the peculiar conditions here: our ugly junk-food habits, our earlier laissez-faire attitudes toward megatons of Corp pollution dumping into rivers and groundwater everywhere.. bad info, massaged info.. all make difficult any sane assessment overall of, "how well our med system in fact meets the peculiar needs of Muricans". Today or at any period.
So I return to the one-word issue of 'BEST' and demur. I say that 'good' is a reasonable adjective for maybe almost a majority of employed population, for most problems. 'Bad to nonexistent' is reasonable depiction re the poor, the uninsured / the growing army of Corp-created 'temps' and.. certainly all the many non-citizens. Trauma alone wins unqualified Best (and only in selected big-city orgs).
Even the cancer treatment selected by foreign nabobs.. can be shown to be more about propaganda and dazzlement by technology: than a clear comprehension of that person's best chances. Very few MDs will honestly present (or know of!) a comprehensive list of alternatives - especially of any outside the PDR. Think Murican law + medical Corporate care here.
(Fortunately there are still a few wise practitioners about - Russian roulette finding these. Crap shoot IMhO)
Rest case.
Ashton
I suggest that, the more you work with/around MDs, the queasier you will become (especially when you catch their repartee in unguarded moments = the only Honest talk).