What My Mechanic Taught Me About Medicine
📅 Tue 23 December 2025 at 02:19 GMT
You should be prepared to learn a life lesson from anyone. Even - and including - your mechanic.
“My car mechanic is a better doctor than I am.”
I saw a patient in the Emergency Department the other day. A young lad – a student – with a rash. He had waited several hours to see me, and evidently was quite concerned.
Fortunately, I could immediately tell that the rash was nothing to be concerned about. It was probably just a reaction. It’ll get better on it’s own, it doesn’t even need a cream or anything.
But in cases like this – where it’s so obvious to me there’s nothing medically serious going on – I do wonder whether the rash is merely an excuse to see a professional. Does the student have a hidden agenda?
Was there anything else worrying him? Exams? Assignments? Stress? Relationship problems? Was he being abused or trafficked? Did he have an embarrassing discharge? What’s ACTUALLY going on here, son???
Now all my mandatory training kicks in – from recognising hidden signs of depression – to safeguarding – to PREVENT – I need to uncover the REAL reason he waited all these hours to see me – was it really about this trivial rash? I’ll be the judge of that.
But it turns out there was nothing else apart from the rash. He’s relieved it’s nothing serious, thanks me, and goes on his merry way. Leaving me feeling – empty – and unfulfilled. What just happened?
In moments like this, it’s so easy and tempting to be judgemental. He wasted my time, and his own time. Doesn’t anyone have any common sense any more? These days everyone wants instant fixes to all their minor problems, right?! How could another person be so oblivious about something that’s so clear to me?
What brings me back to ground is… well – my mechanic. Because that’s when the shoe’s truly on the other foot.
I’ve been taking my car to the same garage for a decade. The owner is a gem. He’s already told me he’s signed a “Do Not Resuscitate” order for my car. But I’ve made him resuscitate it – successfully, I may add – several times, in fact.
His heart must sink every time I pull in with my car. Whenever there’s a rattle. Or a strange thud. Or it’s jittery around corners. I’ll just drop it off to him in the morning. And he’ll call me in the afternoon saying this bearing’s gone. Or that bracket’s cracked. Or it needs a new pressure cylinder widget thing. He may as well tell me it’s chakras need realignment.
I just nod sympathetically, and ask whether I should pick up the car later today, or will she be stopping in overnight? You see, we have that sort of relationship – he has domain-specific knowledge that I don’t have, and that I don’t want to have. He knows I don’t understand the details – I just want to know if he can fix it, how much it’ll cost, and how long it’ll take.
The lesson
We often make the mistake of assuming the person in front of us has the same domain-specific knowledge that we take for granted. This can lead us to incorrectly explain their strange behaviour as maliciousness, incompetence, or stupidity. There’s a name for this – the Curse of Knowledge – it’s a cognitive bias where experts forget what it’s like not to know something.
In reality, a person’s behaviour might simply be explained by a lack of specific knowledge about the matter at hand – whether it’s about rashes, car engines, business management, relationships, or politics. This misdiagnosis can lead to mistreatment. The real question then becomes – how can we add value by helping the person navigate their uncertainty?
Just as my mechanic isn’t going to judge me for my ignorance as I slide my credit card into the card reader, we should be just as professional toward anyone who seems clueless about something we find obvious – because in a different context, we’re all sometimes that anxious student with a rash.
And that’s A Deeper Thought.
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My intellectual workout, I mean :-)
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