What's alarming and interesting isn't that they have a lot of years of school and miss this, but that interpreting diagnostic tests correctly is a core part of their job and they miss it. How many lives are adversely effected and how many billions are wasted by doctors making inappropriate decisions because they don't know how to interpret data correctly?
A few years ago I read that around 50% of all medicine prescribed in the US is providing zero or less net benefit to the patient. Granted by prescribing something doctors get you out of the office and in a few days most things get better on their own. But a lot was simple misunderstanding on the part of doctors about how helpful a given drug actually was.
No, it was specifically talking about prescribed medicine. Granted not the cost of said medicine. Something like this (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/health/24placebo.html) but rather reviewing what drugs patents where taking and comparing it to their symptoms.
