Stupid doctors. Starting in the medical field, I had this notion that a doctor is this kind of universally intelligent, best-of-humanity kind of person.
Some of them are.
But some of them are absolute dumbasses who happen to have a photographic memory that carried them through med school... Like, full blown trumpanzee, falls for conspiracy theory bullshit, superstitious nutjob, knuckle-dragging, slack-jawed idiot.
It shouldn't be possible. No one who makes it through med school should be mentally capable of instantly plummeting to the rock-bottom of stupid as soon as they step foot outside of their field of study (which fortunately most of those types deliver at least passable quality of care).
I'm not sure if there's any field where everyone is qualified. It seems there is no perfect method for objective qualification, without letting idiots slip through the cracks.
One of the better methods is to have a supervisor watch them in practice, but how do you qualify a supervisor? The whole cycle repeats again
There are some really stupid doctors, scientists, electricians, architects and welders, all of which are occupations where incompetence can have dire consequences.
There are recent cases of flawed scientific papers, used as guidance for procedures (ex: surgery), and causing potentially thousands of deaths.
Cases like this is what feeds anti science movements and conspiracies. In many circumstances "science" shouldn't be trusted when there is no line between flawed science and good science.
rock-bottom of stupid as soon as they step foot outside of their field of study
That'd be too many people around me, from the qualified kind. I'm not a doctor though.
Sorry, it's impossible. It's normal for people to be what you described. Just human.
I mean, if you actually manage to create a working procedure for such selection, half the people in the profession will have Aspergers, always red eyes and sleep at work, and the other half will be NT, but some bloody geniuses whose abilities would rather be used in something like fundamental science.
I know a few people closely that I'd consider a genius. I only know one that went into a field where their genius mattered. He changed fundamentals of microbiology. One high school dropout, one just surviving and making decent money doing whatever they try.
It's not that doctors are stupid. Quite the opposite; I strongly suspect that, by any seemingly-objective measure of intelligence, doctors are going to average significantly higher than the general population. (...And veterinary doctors even more so.) Having cognitive biases, believing in conspiracies, etc., isn't a symptom of stupidity; it's a side effect of being human and having emotions. You'll find that very highly intelligent people end up being more effective at rationalizing dumbass, batshit crazy beliefs; the number of engineers, computer scientists, attorneys, etc. that are, for instance, Mormon is astounding.