I would never get on an airplane if I didn’t feel highly confident that the pilot was fully competent. In order to fly a commercial airplane a pilot has to undergo rigorous and continuous training and testing. I’d walk before flying with a pilot whose only credential was his assurance that he’d been diligently “keeping up with his field” and that he was extremely confident in his abilities. I’m glad to know that the FAA and the airlines have extremely demanding programs to ensure the competency of pilots.
I would trust 99% of pilots to remain competent on their own. But when it comes to flying 99%” isn’t good enough. We need to know, within the bounds of what is reasonable, that all pilots are competent. Unfortunately, because of the few bad ones, the remaining 99% have to undergo all the rigorous training and tests.
Doctors are like pilots: what they do is far too important to let them individually decide for themselves whether they are competent, or how they should demonstrate their competency. Just because the vast majority of pilots and doctors are competent doesn’t mean that we should loosen our standards.
This topic is important now because of a current red-hot debate over what physicians have to do during their career to maintain their certification– called maintenance of certification, or MOC…
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Click here to read the full post on Forbes.
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