In the US, this is consistent with my experience, as well...I experience it from a few perspectives...as a patient myself and as someone involved in the ICUs at the hospital...but my wife, a RN working in a cardiac outpatient clinic will also talk about her experiences.
For some perspective, some things to consider:
1. Q. What do you call the person who graduated dead last in his/her class from med school? A. Doctor. Some are quite gifted, intelligent, empathetic...and others not so much.
2. In general, the level of comprehensive and quality of health care tends to decrease once you are out of the major metropolitan areas. Say what you want about young, inexperienced, interns and residents at teaching hospitals, but they do tend to be searching for and asking a lot of questions from their attending physicians. It keeps everyone on their "A" game. Furthermore, these large metropolitan hospitals have a full complement of specialists in every area, surgeons, research teams, etc. The smaller, slower-paced, outlying hospitals and clinics do not have that dynamic. There are no specialists in house, simply generalists...and some do not know what they do not know...furthermore the staff are not as experienced in high-level care, nor do they even have the medical equipment to perform it. If you are pregnant and thinking a quiet, slow-paced, rural hospital is for you to deliver your baby...think again...everything may be fine, until it is not, and then you and the baby are in trouble. The good ones will be quick to refer you to a specialist, the others will make some attempt at managing things themselves with hit and miss outcomes. A good chunk of my job is transporting infants and children from small, outlying hospitals to our facility for higher-level care. The adult team does the same on their end.
3. Specialists are extremely overworked with very tight time schedules in their offices. Leasing office space is very expensive, they pay their own staff, and they still have procedures and make rounds in the hospitals, often more than one hospital. The end result is that it can take months to even get an appointment, it can be cancelled at the last minute, requiring rescheduling, and when you do get in there, they will have 4-8 patients in different rooms waiting, and are limited to about 10 minutes per patient. It has to go at that pace simply to meet patient demands, but also to pay the bills, and many get so darned burnt out, they rarely are in medicine past the age of 50 before moving on to something totally different or retiring. It is an absolute nightmare of a "rat race" for them. Can things get missed? Yes. Are they more inclined to go down the most common pathways instead of really investigating secondary, contributing causes? Yes. None of this is good, obviously, but completely understandable given the pinch they are put in.
4. If you have a specific type of health condition that requires a specialist...and you are admitted to the emergency room, the ER staff are not going to understand all the specialty medications you are on, nor why your lab results are the way that they are, nor how to manage it appropriately. My wife gets SO pissed when her patients are horribly mismanaged by ER doctors who are quick to intervene with inappropriate care, or worse, send them home with a recommendation to see their specialist...when they need appropriate life-saving care immediately. If my wife sends a patient to the ER, she will call the ER team and give them the appropriate information...but there are many instances where her patients are in the ER or admitted to the hospital, and she is unaware for days.
5. There will be NO consistency in health care from place to place nor doctor to doctor. That is the reality in the US. A med center, clinic, or hospital in one area will not be the same in another area. Keep that in mind no matter what your individual situation is. Nothing wrong with looking up medical information on the internet or AI chat bots...but do not assume it is appropriate nor correct for your specific situation...and do use it to ask physician questions. Ask a lot of questions. Ask for referrals. Ask for second opinions. Do not worry about the doctors feelings...they probably don't mind at all.