Comment by BobaFloutist

More constructively, the middle ground of asking a doctor about some minor symptoms over async messaging or tele-appointments (whatever the term for those is), is probably always something to consider for the trivial stuff.

My partner works in emergency. Someone came in with a blister on their finger yesterday. They had to see the patient and send them home with a bandaid. Not a good use of resources.

Yes and no, you really don't need a deep expertise to diagnose the very common illness.

And that's where chatgpt is doing great.

There is no need to nitpick obvious comments. If you have a running nose and fever in winter, it's 99.99% a cold and a doctor visit will do nothing to help you, yet millions of people waste doctors time for that