For years, physicians have voiced the same frustrations: declining reimbursement, increasing administrative burden, private equity infiltration, insurance company control, expanding scope creep, artificial intelligence (AI) anxiety, and healthcare policies created by people far removed from patient care. Doctors complain online, in hospital lounges, in group chats, and at conferences. Despite these shared grievances, physicians remain one of the least unified professional groups in the country. The deeper issue is that medicine has created a culture fundamentally incompatible with collective action.
Physicians are trained to compete, not collaborate; to individualize success, not organize around shared interests. And many see themselves as exceptional individuals rather than members of a working class. As a result, while every other stakeholder in healthcare consolidates power, physicians continue to fracture into smaller and smaller groups divided by specialty, prestige, age, politics, training pedigree, compensation models, and ego.
This conditioning starts early. Medicine selects for achievement long before medical school begins. The path rewards those who outperform others academically: top grades, top MCAT scores, research publications, honors societies, board scores, fellowships, and elite institutions. The system identifies people who are extraordinarily disciplined, intelligent, and high-achieving, but it does not necessarily select for emotional intelligence, humility, communication, collaboration, or coalition-building.
