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(This isn't directed at anyone. I just needed to rant mindlessly.)
I am a healthy skeptic of modern medicine. If I didn't respect the institution and the practitioners (to say nothing of the negative externalities they operate with -- e.g., poor analytical statistics instruction, drug advertising and weak FDA), I wouldn't consider it at all.
That said, I treat everything my doctor tells me as a professional opinion, nothing more and nothing less. Doctors are people and thus have bad days on top of operating with incomplete information.
I know first hand how hard it can be to analyze software. You can always get visibility into any part of the system, given enough time--but even then you have to be careful to not confound the results (this happens all the time and it's hard to discern). Biological systems are much more complicated and do not yield to all of the analytical techniques I use everyday, no matter how much time and care you take.
Doctors are valuable in that they can diagnose your body as quickly and accurately as I can diagnose your code problems. Your local holistic "practitioner" is often just making shit up or relying on shit other people made up.
"It works for me" is anecdote, not data. Most novice programmers make this mistake and get a face full of pie when they use the excuse on customers, bosses or experienced developers. Even if you know hundreds of people who have made the same observation, you can't generalize without valid experiments. Sure, if it isn't going to hurt you, you can try it but you can't have any confidence that it will work. That's what experiments give you: x% confidence that your diagnosis is true and the solution will work in a given set of circumstances.
As an example, I manage my psychiatric illnesses on my own most of the time. However, when things get really bad and my usual coping mechanisms are failing, I see a professional and get therapy and meds to get over the rough spots. The professionals think what I do is super dangerous and that I should be on high doses of medication at all times. Medication that makes life not worth living; no sex, no enjoying food, no enthusiasm, no exercise sounds like a great way to live, right? For most of the population, however, the professional is right and their cocktails work.
tl; dr: ZOMG! Don't confuse individuals with statistics. Medicine is not an exact science. It is based on a lot of things, including professional experience and judgement (which may not easily be explicated).
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