In some states PsyDs are allowed to prescribe (but there might be limits on what they can prescribe vs a psychiatrist).
We don’t have enough regulations on mental health care. And it’s a bigger problem than people realize.
I agree 100% on there being a need to focus on evidence based practice, but I also don’t think that it necessarily as clear cut as a more rigorous degree = somebody will make a good therapist. A problem of not listening to/believing your patients is also a major issue in just about any healthcare setting (including mental health).
Example: I have ADHD and see a psychiatrist for that reason, but I learned pretty quickly a psychiatrist does not want to hear about your problems. (I think some old school psychiatrists are slightly better about this. Not old, old school, but there seems to be a divide between ones who did their residency in the 90s vs 00s and beyond in my state). Anyway, psychiatry also requires a more rigorous degree and a very long somewhat grueling and competitive residency, but it can be a pretty cushy job once you get established.
Most psychiatrists want to figure out what you need, prescribe it, and then just check in every few months to see if you need a dose adjustment. They (like most doctors unfortunately) don’t like to hear things that contradict what they already believe.
I saw mainly residents in the beginning when I finally started trying to address my lifelong ADHD problems in my 30s. Most immediately assumed I was just drug seeking, and kept treating me for depression instead of just believing me when I tried to explain myself. I ended up taking Wellbutrin for several years alongside my ADHD meds even though it had only been prescribed to me in the beginning bc the psychiatrist didn’t really think I had ADHD.
I wanted to stop taking it but nobody would just listen to me or believe me. Eventually I had to wean my dose down myself (do not take this as a recommendation to try, especially if you take any extended release medication) and just stop taking it altogether to convince my psychiatrist that I hadn’t needed anything other than the ADHD treatment in the first place.
Especially when it comes to getting psychiatrists to understand that people respond differently to different medications (especially extended release and generic meds) or combinations of medications, there are many psychiatrists who will just straight up refuse to believe their patients because “that shouldn’t be the case.”
I actually worked in a molecular bio lab for a while. The PI was a very rigorous scientist (in her own way) and had done some pretty incredible work in her area of research. However, she was also one of the most stubborn and hard headed individuals I’ve ever known, and it was exhausting. I remember her randomly going off once about stupid uneducated people not understanding there’s no difference between a generic drug and a name brand drug other than price.
Except we know that there are many factors that can actually change the way an individual body processes and metabolizes medication, including hormones and gene polymorphisms. We know that some companies use different fillers and binding ingredients in their recipe, and there’s also been cases where generic drug manufacturers have been shut down for poor quality control.
If you have patients noticing their medication suddenly isn’t helping, and then seeking answers, and you have scientists and medical doctors both rushing to the same conclusion and dog piling on this somewhat outdated belief about generic drugs, you end up with people being gaslit and told they’re just being difficult/making things up. Think about all the times people tried to tell their doctor their medication wasn’t working, and were dismissed because “that shouldn’t be the case.”
That’s a pretty dangerous attitude to have in science and medicine. Science isn’t supposed to be a religion. You’re supposed to be skeptical and question things. In medicine you’re supposed to treat the patient, not the disease. Yet there are people in science and medicine who become so rigid in their beliefs, biases, and established ways of thinking that they essentially make it their unquestionable religion. God help you if you challenge their beliefs regardless of what evidence you may have to present your case. It’s toxic and it ends up placing the ego of the doctor or scientist above the well being of the patient or research.
I think like most things, it’s a pendulum that shouldn’t be swinging too far one way or the other. There are plenty of quacks out there who use woo woo to grift and destroy people’s lives, but there are also a scary number of highly educated and trained doctors who refuse to treat the patient not just the symptoms. They’re both dangerous in their own ways and they both erode trust.
I ended up also seeing a PsyD just to get an official evaluation and diagnosis, because most accommodation arrangements require a behavioral assessment, not just the diagnosis from a psychiatrist. I definitely think the standard evaluation process could use some tweaking and updating from psychologists with a research background, but I can also see why you would want a behavioral assessment from a clinician in addition to a psychiatrist diagnosis.
As far as therapists go, surprisingly, I’ve found social workers who obtained a license for clinical therapy to be the most helpful and willing to really listen to the individual. I’ve also found help in some nontraditional and unexpected areas that were recommended by my therapist like somatic breathing and stretching. Obviously it’s not a guarantee this is what each person will benefit from, but again, it just kind of seems like a pendulum situation/don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I think ideally, a team of professionals working together and in some basic level of communication with each other to coordinate care, would result in the best outcome for patients. But the more administrative health policy relied on efficiency as the ultimate goal of measure of determining best practices, the further the pendulum swings away from that ideal.
Well a psychiatrist is a medical doctor. They aren’t really trained to counsel you. Except on medications. If you want someone to talk to, you need to see a psychologist. Or masters of social work (counselor).
Like psyD. It’s hit or miss with them. It heavily depends on the quality of their education institution.
I think also many people dont know the difference between psychologist and psychiatrist. They often go to the wrong one for their issues. Most people would benefit from going to both. Not an opinion. There is research supporting that.
It’s not uncommon for them to work together for a specific patient.
Psychiatry is not more rigorous. Infact I would argue it requires the least psychology education out of the 3 I mention.
A psychiatrist first goes to med school. Then completes additional residency and training in psychiatry. Which again, is primarily focused on administering tests/batteries and prescribing medications.
And learning how to adjust meds. Which meds should be tried first. Which side effects are normal and which indicates a problem. They have no training on giving talk therapy.
Their only therapy is medications. Some offer talk therapy.
Which is a problem because it’s just their own personal biased beliefs about what talk therapy should be.
And it’s true that in some states there are exceptions for PhD to prescribe some mental health drugs. It’s not very common. It’s only a handful of states and there are a bunch of steps to be able to do that.
People like me, who are researchers know a lot about the mind. Cognitive. Memory. Sensory. We know the limits of introspection. We know about cognitive dissonance. We know that culture heavily influence a given experience.
It’s this base knowledge that so many PsyD people lack. Many didn’t even have a bachelor’s in psychology.
And even if they did. They werent able to get into a PhD clinical program because they were not considered good enough. They didn’t have the right experience , grades, or any number of other qualifications. Another gate to PhD programs is you have to learn math statistics and do research. And many people want to be a therapist but don’t want to learn the math or do challenging research.
I know that sounds mean to say but it’s true. And when you don’t develop those skills, you don’t learn how to critically analyze research.
You can’t tell good science from bad science.
You can’t tell the difference between effect size because you don’t even know what that is or how it’s computed.
This is the bigger problem. What you end up with is therapist who use their own flawed intuition and personal theories (as well intentioned as it may be) to make decisions on mental health care for others.
If they had actual training in cognitive psychology, they would know that humans are incredibly biased and we cannot use our own judgement but must, above all else, rely on the scientific method. Everything must be tested.
We are wrong about so much because of how our brains work. (Confirmation bias being the big one). We are incredibly limited in our ability to see bias in ourselves. It’s actually almost impossible.
A good therapist should understand that they are by their human nature, biased.
And that they need to trust scientific evidence based practices.
And they need to be able to evaluate that evidence and update their knowledge as new research and theories are developed.
Ive met psyD people who were taught by research oriented professors. Who learned stats. Learned to evaluate research.
But it’s rare. Most psyD programs do not teach clinicians any of that.
Ive also met PhDs who did half assed research and their professors did not promote scientific based methods. The kind of research that never gets published because it’s so poor quality.
But typically it’s psyD programs that produce the lower quality therapist and phD produce the best. As I said, this isn’t a personal opinion. There is research on this topic.
This is why as a prospective student, you have to do a lot of research into the institution you are interested in.
So many psyD institutions are closed all the time or have fasfa money cancelled because a review of their education curriculum shows they aren’t following modern standards.
PsyD people are the ones promoting recovered traumatic memories (not a real phenomena, these are false memories). Promoting split personality (it’s not possible for a human to have two person inside them). And a bunch of other nonsense stuff like that. EMDR comes to mind. Which is pseudoscience wrapped around a legitimate therapy.
They make up b.s conditions like “peter pan syndrome” or “daddy issues” and promote them as being scientific mental health issues when they are cultural/society issues.
Dr. Oz an Dr Phil are prime examples of how so many of these PsyD people operate.
They throw around Freud nonsense as if it explains something complex. It doesn’t.
Freud is not considered scientific by modern standards. None of his theories have held up with scientific investigation. Same for Jung.
You hear anyone say either of those names, run the opposite direction. It’s all made up nonsense.
People are getting charged money for these services from people who are filling their head with nonsense. Making their conditions worse.
Not actually helping them. And charging them money.
Well a psychiatrist is a medical doctor. They aren’t really trained to counsel you.
No, but they are trained to diagnose you, and if they’re unwilling to actually listen to what their patient is trying to say, then they can’t really know what the problem is.
Another gate to PhD programs is you have to learn math statistics and do research. And many people want to be a therapist but don’t want to learn the math or do challenging research.
Most basic scientists: “How do I run an ANOVA in SPSS/Prism?”
I guess we’ve had different experiences. Not sure if you’re doing things like fMRI studies, but the majority of math I’ve encountered in basic science research has just been plugging data into a program. I suck at math, but I’ve always kicked ass at research, especially ideas for future directions, experimental design, problem solving, lit review and writing.
I know in my state at least there was at one point a Psy D program that people completed after getting their Psychology PhD. Most of those people were in clinical labs that actually seemed to be super into really advanced stats, and “making the data say whatever they needed it to say.” Which, ngl, always seemed like a kinda fucked up way to approach research, but I’m no stats whizz, so who am I to judge.
Yeah p-hacking is a huge big problem in psychology.
And it’s true. You can use sleazy approaches to get the numbers to give you the results you want. But luckily there are specific guidelines on statistics and if you use them to do p hacking. You won’t get your paper published.
The people who review the papers know what p hacking is.
And it’s also true we mostly use stat software.
But.
Before we use the software. We learn to do it by hand.
It’s imperative because this is the only way to really learn how to do it properly with software.
People are really intimidated by statistics. And I’m not going to lie and say I found it easy. I didnt.
I had very poor math skills coming in. And I spent at least 20 hours a week outside of class , going over math basics and trying to re educate myself. Because I didn’t even have a strong high school level of math proficiency.
But I wanted to do research so bad. I told myself I was going to learn it. And excel at it. And I did. But it was a lot of frustration and tears on the way. And an incredible amount of additional study hours on a topic that put me in a bad mood. I had to bribe myself with so much ice cream to stay focused.
Also ive never heard of anyone with a PhD getting a psyD later. Are you sure about that ?
Not saying you are incorrect, just saying Ive never heard of that.
People sometimes do post-docs after PhDs. That’s just more research tho.
I’m not a clinical psychologist, I just knew a lot of people who were in a traditional clinical Psych PhD program, and PsyD was one of the path options they could take, if they wanted to become a medical psychologist/prescribe medication. Idk if it was just a short cut so they didn’t have to finish the full PhD program, but they had been accepted into a PhD program.
They still had to complete basic course work including stats, which was one of the only class where we overlapped. I don’t remember anyone ever doing stats by hand. I do remember the people who were clinical usually didn’t have to collect their own data or do any experiments for their M.S., but they also were more likely to use really high level stats analyses. I remember words like bootstrapping, and it seeming very complicated.
At one point I did use a massive data set for a class project to run forecasting or something? But post grad school, a 3-way anova is about as advanced as I’ve ever needed to get. There are people who do more advanced stat work in basic science, and use R instead of the easier programs, but it’s definitely not the norm from my experience. I guess it just depends on the size of the data set you’re analyzing and what you’re trying to do with it. For example, I was talking to somebody recently who worked in infectious disease, and she mentioned that the highest level stats she ever used was a t-test.
From my own experience (maybe it’s just a U.S. thing, idk) but there are people who do very important research without using very complicated stats, and there are people who do very important research and also use very complicated stats. There’s also often a collaborative effort where one side may be more involved in generating the data to a certain point, and the other has a very niche role where they take the research relay baton and do their complex voodoo that I don’t really understand.
There are also people in public health and other fields who don’t always do their own research, but still use giant data sets to answer very important questions. Then there seem to be some people in various fields who never design their own experiments or collect their own data, but recycle huge data sets over and over again for p-hacking using very complicated stats that I don’t understand.
I admit my experience is completely dependent on how science is conducted in the U.S., but even an 8 year PhD from a prestigious institution, plus a series of never ending post docs from other prestigious institutions, and the ability to do the most complicated stats, would not make me assume that person is necessarily smart or skilled in anything other than their own niche area of research.
The same is true for an MD or MD/PhD. They might be very smart in whatever residency they completed or whatever field they achieved their PhD, but how do they actually think about new information/approach problem solving?
I feel like we all grow up hearing way too often, that we’re all smart in our own unique way, (which is probably true), but most people tend to avoid acknowledging the fact that we’re all also very dumb in our own unique way. No single person can know everything, and no human or machine is ever completely free from error.
Empathy, respect and consideration for others, along with critical thinking, and fluid problem solving skills, are usually not things people learn in a classroom or lab. Unfortunately, those skills are also undervalued in society until the moment inevitably comes when they are desperately needed. Then, big surprise, most people don’t even know how to begin to think about ways to approach a new problem, because they never really learned to think outside of a rigid and sometimes biased box.
On the rare occasion they actually allow their ego to take a break for a moment, and try to think critically about a complicated problem, the ego will often snap back into place the moment anyone questions the off target consequences or downstream effects of their idea. This is another reason it can really pay off to have an entire team people who are uniquely smart and uniquely dumb in their own way, with varying degrees of education and life experience, all working together to solve a problem.
When you use any level of education as a tool to help you continue to think critically and solve new and challenging problems, that’s very helpful for all of society. When you allow your level of education to become your impenetrable ego, and act as a blinder/shield to even consider any information that seems like it might contradict what you already believe to be true, it becomes a danger to society.
Yeah I’ve known a lot of these people as well.
In some states PsyDs are allowed to prescribe (but there might be limits on what they can prescribe vs a psychiatrist).
I agree 100% on there being a need to focus on evidence based practice, but I also don’t think that it necessarily as clear cut as a more rigorous degree = somebody will make a good therapist. A problem of not listening to/believing your patients is also a major issue in just about any healthcare setting (including mental health).
Example: I have ADHD and see a psychiatrist for that reason, but I learned pretty quickly a psychiatrist does not want to hear about your problems. (I think some old school psychiatrists are slightly better about this. Not old, old school, but there seems to be a divide between ones who did their residency in the 90s vs 00s and beyond in my state). Anyway, psychiatry also requires a more rigorous degree and a very long somewhat grueling and competitive residency, but it can be a pretty cushy job once you get established.
Most psychiatrists want to figure out what you need, prescribe it, and then just check in every few months to see if you need a dose adjustment. They (like most doctors unfortunately) don’t like to hear things that contradict what they already believe.
I saw mainly residents in the beginning when I finally started trying to address my lifelong ADHD problems in my 30s. Most immediately assumed I was just drug seeking, and kept treating me for depression instead of just believing me when I tried to explain myself. I ended up taking Wellbutrin for several years alongside my ADHD meds even though it had only been prescribed to me in the beginning bc the psychiatrist didn’t really think I had ADHD.
I wanted to stop taking it but nobody would just listen to me or believe me. Eventually I had to wean my dose down myself (do not take this as a recommendation to try, especially if you take any extended release medication) and just stop taking it altogether to convince my psychiatrist that I hadn’t needed anything other than the ADHD treatment in the first place.
Especially when it comes to getting psychiatrists to understand that people respond differently to different medications (especially extended release and generic meds) or combinations of medications, there are many psychiatrists who will just straight up refuse to believe their patients because “that shouldn’t be the case.”
I actually worked in a molecular bio lab for a while. The PI was a very rigorous scientist (in her own way) and had done some pretty incredible work in her area of research. However, she was also one of the most stubborn and hard headed individuals I’ve ever known, and it was exhausting. I remember her randomly going off once about stupid uneducated people not understanding there’s no difference between a generic drug and a name brand drug other than price.
Except we know that there are many factors that can actually change the way an individual body processes and metabolizes medication, including hormones and gene polymorphisms. We know that some companies use different fillers and binding ingredients in their recipe, and there’s also been cases where generic drug manufacturers have been shut down for poor quality control.
If you have patients noticing their medication suddenly isn’t helping, and then seeking answers, and you have scientists and medical doctors both rushing to the same conclusion and dog piling on this somewhat outdated belief about generic drugs, you end up with people being gaslit and told they’re just being difficult/making things up. Think about all the times people tried to tell their doctor their medication wasn’t working, and were dismissed because “that shouldn’t be the case.”
That’s a pretty dangerous attitude to have in science and medicine. Science isn’t supposed to be a religion. You’re supposed to be skeptical and question things. In medicine you’re supposed to treat the patient, not the disease. Yet there are people in science and medicine who become so rigid in their beliefs, biases, and established ways of thinking that they essentially make it their unquestionable religion. God help you if you challenge their beliefs regardless of what evidence you may have to present your case. It’s toxic and it ends up placing the ego of the doctor or scientist above the well being of the patient or research.
I think like most things, it’s a pendulum that shouldn’t be swinging too far one way or the other. There are plenty of quacks out there who use woo woo to grift and destroy people’s lives, but there are also a scary number of highly educated and trained doctors who refuse to treat the patient not just the symptoms. They’re both dangerous in their own ways and they both erode trust.
I ended up also seeing a PsyD just to get an official evaluation and diagnosis, because most accommodation arrangements require a behavioral assessment, not just the diagnosis from a psychiatrist. I definitely think the standard evaluation process could use some tweaking and updating from psychologists with a research background, but I can also see why you would want a behavioral assessment from a clinician in addition to a psychiatrist diagnosis.
As far as therapists go, surprisingly, I’ve found social workers who obtained a license for clinical therapy to be the most helpful and willing to really listen to the individual. I’ve also found help in some nontraditional and unexpected areas that were recommended by my therapist like somatic breathing and stretching. Obviously it’s not a guarantee this is what each person will benefit from, but again, it just kind of seems like a pendulum situation/don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I think ideally, a team of professionals working together and in some basic level of communication with each other to coordinate care, would result in the best outcome for patients. But the more administrative health policy relied on efficiency as the ultimate goal of measure of determining best practices, the further the pendulum swings away from that ideal.
Well a psychiatrist is a medical doctor. They aren’t really trained to counsel you. Except on medications. If you want someone to talk to, you need to see a psychologist. Or masters of social work (counselor). Like psyD. It’s hit or miss with them. It heavily depends on the quality of their education institution.
I think also many people dont know the difference between psychologist and psychiatrist. They often go to the wrong one for their issues. Most people would benefit from going to both. Not an opinion. There is research supporting that.
It’s not uncommon for them to work together for a specific patient.
Psychiatry is not more rigorous. Infact I would argue it requires the least psychology education out of the 3 I mention.
A psychiatrist first goes to med school. Then completes additional residency and training in psychiatry. Which again, is primarily focused on administering tests/batteries and prescribing medications.
And learning how to adjust meds. Which meds should be tried first. Which side effects are normal and which indicates a problem. They have no training on giving talk therapy.
Their only therapy is medications. Some offer talk therapy. Which is a problem because it’s just their own personal biased beliefs about what talk therapy should be.
And it’s true that in some states there are exceptions for PhD to prescribe some mental health drugs. It’s not very common. It’s only a handful of states and there are a bunch of steps to be able to do that.
People like me, who are researchers know a lot about the mind. Cognitive. Memory. Sensory. We know the limits of introspection. We know about cognitive dissonance. We know that culture heavily influence a given experience.
It’s this base knowledge that so many PsyD people lack. Many didn’t even have a bachelor’s in psychology.
And even if they did. They werent able to get into a PhD clinical program because they were not considered good enough. They didn’t have the right experience , grades, or any number of other qualifications. Another gate to PhD programs is you have to learn math statistics and do research. And many people want to be a therapist but don’t want to learn the math or do challenging research.
I know that sounds mean to say but it’s true. And when you don’t develop those skills, you don’t learn how to critically analyze research.
You can’t tell good science from bad science.
You can’t tell the difference between effect size because you don’t even know what that is or how it’s computed.
This is the bigger problem. What you end up with is therapist who use their own flawed intuition and personal theories (as well intentioned as it may be) to make decisions on mental health care for others.
If they had actual training in cognitive psychology, they would know that humans are incredibly biased and we cannot use our own judgement but must, above all else, rely on the scientific method. Everything must be tested.
We are wrong about so much because of how our brains work. (Confirmation bias being the big one). We are incredibly limited in our ability to see bias in ourselves. It’s actually almost impossible.
A good therapist should understand that they are by their human nature, biased.
And that they need to trust scientific evidence based practices.
And they need to be able to evaluate that evidence and update their knowledge as new research and theories are developed.
Ive met psyD people who were taught by research oriented professors. Who learned stats. Learned to evaluate research. But it’s rare. Most psyD programs do not teach clinicians any of that.
Ive also met PhDs who did half assed research and their professors did not promote scientific based methods. The kind of research that never gets published because it’s so poor quality.
But typically it’s psyD programs that produce the lower quality therapist and phD produce the best. As I said, this isn’t a personal opinion. There is research on this topic.
This is why as a prospective student, you have to do a lot of research into the institution you are interested in.
So many psyD institutions are closed all the time or have fasfa money cancelled because a review of their education curriculum shows they aren’t following modern standards.
PsyD people are the ones promoting recovered traumatic memories (not a real phenomena, these are false memories). Promoting split personality (it’s not possible for a human to have two person inside them). And a bunch of other nonsense stuff like that. EMDR comes to mind. Which is pseudoscience wrapped around a legitimate therapy.
They make up b.s conditions like “peter pan syndrome” or “daddy issues” and promote them as being scientific mental health issues when they are cultural/society issues.
Dr. Oz an Dr Phil are prime examples of how so many of these PsyD people operate.
They throw around Freud nonsense as if it explains something complex. It doesn’t.
Freud is not considered scientific by modern standards. None of his theories have held up with scientific investigation. Same for Jung.
You hear anyone say either of those names, run the opposite direction. It’s all made up nonsense.
People are getting charged money for these services from people who are filling their head with nonsense. Making their conditions worse.
Not actually helping them. And charging them money.
No, but they are trained to diagnose you, and if they’re unwilling to actually listen to what their patient is trying to say, then they can’t really know what the problem is.
Most basic scientists: “How do I run an ANOVA in SPSS/Prism?”
I guess we’ve had different experiences. Not sure if you’re doing things like fMRI studies, but the majority of math I’ve encountered in basic science research has just been plugging data into a program. I suck at math, but I’ve always kicked ass at research, especially ideas for future directions, experimental design, problem solving, lit review and writing.
I know in my state at least there was at one point a Psy D program that people completed after getting their Psychology PhD. Most of those people were in clinical labs that actually seemed to be super into really advanced stats, and “making the data say whatever they needed it to say.” Which, ngl, always seemed like a kinda fucked up way to approach research, but I’m no stats whizz, so who am I to judge.
Yeah p-hacking is a huge big problem in psychology.
And it’s true. You can use sleazy approaches to get the numbers to give you the results you want. But luckily there are specific guidelines on statistics and if you use them to do p hacking. You won’t get your paper published.
The people who review the papers know what p hacking is.
And it’s also true we mostly use stat software. But.
Before we use the software. We learn to do it by hand. It’s imperative because this is the only way to really learn how to do it properly with software.
People are really intimidated by statistics. And I’m not going to lie and say I found it easy. I didnt.
I had very poor math skills coming in. And I spent at least 20 hours a week outside of class , going over math basics and trying to re educate myself. Because I didn’t even have a strong high school level of math proficiency.
But I wanted to do research so bad. I told myself I was going to learn it. And excel at it. And I did. But it was a lot of frustration and tears on the way. And an incredible amount of additional study hours on a topic that put me in a bad mood. I had to bribe myself with so much ice cream to stay focused.
Also ive never heard of anyone with a PhD getting a psyD later. Are you sure about that ? Not saying you are incorrect, just saying Ive never heard of that.
People sometimes do post-docs after PhDs. That’s just more research tho.
I’m not a clinical psychologist, I just knew a lot of people who were in a traditional clinical Psych PhD program, and PsyD was one of the path options they could take, if they wanted to become a medical psychologist/prescribe medication. Idk if it was just a short cut so they didn’t have to finish the full PhD program, but they had been accepted into a PhD program.
They still had to complete basic course work including stats, which was one of the only class where we overlapped. I don’t remember anyone ever doing stats by hand. I do remember the people who were clinical usually didn’t have to collect their own data or do any experiments for their M.S., but they also were more likely to use really high level stats analyses. I remember words like bootstrapping, and it seeming very complicated.
At one point I did use a massive data set for a class project to run forecasting or something? But post grad school, a 3-way anova is about as advanced as I’ve ever needed to get. There are people who do more advanced stat work in basic science, and use R instead of the easier programs, but it’s definitely not the norm from my experience. I guess it just depends on the size of the data set you’re analyzing and what you’re trying to do with it. For example, I was talking to somebody recently who worked in infectious disease, and she mentioned that the highest level stats she ever used was a t-test.
From my own experience (maybe it’s just a U.S. thing, idk) but there are people who do very important research without using very complicated stats, and there are people who do very important research and also use very complicated stats. There’s also often a collaborative effort where one side may be more involved in generating the data to a certain point, and the other has a very niche role where they take the research relay baton and do their complex voodoo that I don’t really understand.
There are also people in public health and other fields who don’t always do their own research, but still use giant data sets to answer very important questions. Then there seem to be some people in various fields who never design their own experiments or collect their own data, but recycle huge data sets over and over again for p-hacking using very complicated stats that I don’t understand.
I admit my experience is completely dependent on how science is conducted in the U.S., but even an 8 year PhD from a prestigious institution, plus a series of never ending post docs from other prestigious institutions, and the ability to do the most complicated stats, would not make me assume that person is necessarily smart or skilled in anything other than their own niche area of research.
The same is true for an MD or MD/PhD. They might be very smart in whatever residency they completed or whatever field they achieved their PhD, but how do they actually think about new information/approach problem solving?
I feel like we all grow up hearing way too often, that we’re all smart in our own unique way, (which is probably true), but most people tend to avoid acknowledging the fact that we’re all also very dumb in our own unique way. No single person can know everything, and no human or machine is ever completely free from error.
Empathy, respect and consideration for others, along with critical thinking, and fluid problem solving skills, are usually not things people learn in a classroom or lab. Unfortunately, those skills are also undervalued in society until the moment inevitably comes when they are desperately needed. Then, big surprise, most people don’t even know how to begin to think about ways to approach a new problem, because they never really learned to think outside of a rigid and sometimes biased box.
On the rare occasion they actually allow their ego to take a break for a moment, and try to think critically about a complicated problem, the ego will often snap back into place the moment anyone questions the off target consequences or downstream effects of their idea. This is another reason it can really pay off to have an entire team people who are uniquely smart and uniquely dumb in their own way, with varying degrees of education and life experience, all working together to solve a problem.
When you use any level of education as a tool to help you continue to think critically and solve new and challenging problems, that’s very helpful for all of society. When you allow your level of education to become your impenetrable ego, and act as a blinder/shield to even consider any information that seems like it might contradict what you already believe to be true, it becomes a danger to society.