Doctors are taught the old adage, "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras." It's what he did here and it was wrong. Okay, that's understandable. If he had spent all of his time wildly pitching around for an obscure cause of the migraines, it would have been a waste of everyone's time. I think Dr. Parikh didn't see the abnormality in the boy's eye because he wasn't looking for it; had he been searching for any and all clues as to cause of the problem, he might have looked at everything more closely. It's the same reason why you've never noticed a particular store that you've driven by a million times until someone points it out to you--it just wasn't relevant information at the time. Doctors are trained to be more aware than the average person, granted, but they are still human and just trying to get through the day like the rest of us by filtering the information that they need at the time. I'm a librarian, and hundreds of studies have proven time and time again that researchers absolutely do not retain information literacy skills, such as how to find books in a catalog, until they actually have a reason to use that book in order to fulfill a "real" need. All the instruction in the world won't matter unless you make it relate to helping that person solve a problem in their own lives. If human brains weren't able to do this, we'd be so overloaded with information that our ability to process info would shut down entirely!
All that being said, I think Dr. Parikh is a wonderful physician and a big man for stepping up and apologizing. It took real guts! My experience with most doctors is totally the opposite. If they can't find an immediate cause to your problem, it must be the patient's fault or "all in your head." They're so blinded by arrogance, pride, or both that they just dismiss you outright. If I did that every time I had a tough question but couldn't readily find an answer, I'd be fired so fast it would make my head spin. Somehow, though, it's considered more acceptable in the medical profession, and that has to change, too.
