I don't believe he is mad that his psychiatrist is not doing academic research, but instead mad that he is not listening to his claims about smoking having a benefit to his mental illness.
Not just psychiatrists. A significant proportion of M.D.s of all subspecialties are surprisingly uncurious and unwilling to listen seriously to patient symptom reports (even detailed reports of careful observations), whenever anything doesn’t match their narrow past experience. Instead of admitting they just haven’t seen anything similar before or suggesting ways to follow up with research literature etc., doctors often second-guess their patients’ reports in such cases and chase people away with speculation about hypochondria, etc.
I think medical school / career pressures do a good job of selecting strongly for folks good at following instructions and memorizing information provided by some authority at the expense of curiosity or critical thinking. This works great when someone goes in for a common condition and needs routine treatment, but can get pretty frustrating for patients suffering from anything atypical.
Or maybe I’m being unfair and this is just true of people in general.
Or maybe the doctors are rational, and patients are just generally less reliable than medical authorities are. Additionally, it's very hard to tell reliable patients from unreliable patients, and personal bias ends up playing a huge role.
