Doctors are liability lightning rods who've gone through a professional hazing process to join an exclusive club that has massively warped American medicine through its lobbying efforts. Unless you're dealing with a specialist they're often not super competent - that's why doctors are being replaced with nurse practitioners and physicians assistants everywhere (to the point that you often won't ever see an actual doctor at a lot of medical facilities) and usually people are completely oblivious to the fact.

Pharmacists in other countries do a lot of the basic shit doctors in the USA do, with less overhead, for cheaper and with a much faster turnaround. Antibiotics, blood pressure/cholesterol meds, antidepressants and other rubber stamp drugs absolutely do not need to be strongly controlled.