We have those rules, so IMHO it's more professional isolation than laziness. Back in residency I'd frequently discuss things with colleagues, try out some of their preferred techniques and debate the pros/cons of doing things one way or the other. Now that I'm in practice I barely ever talk to other doctors, unless I'm giving them a patient.

I've heard that back in the old days doctors would congregate for lunch in the local hospital. They'd use that time to form both a professional & personal relationship between the ER, specialists, and clinics in the area. Now the hospitals rarely offer free lunches, and nobody would have time for that even if they did. Most clinicians are running from patient to patient all day, so they don't have time to sit down and discuss a patient with another doctor over the phone... except in the most serious of circumstances. I typically refer patients to specialists I've never met or spoken to, and have no idea if they would have preferred I done something differently or what the patient' outcome was. As such, I am almost never critiqued on what I do... unless I screw up to the point of getting sued.

Sadly, I think physician communities were another casualty of EMRs & prior-auths. The average physician spends 50% of their time on paperwork, so aside from pulling time away from patients it cut physician-physician interaction by an order of magnitude or more. It's easy to set-up a clinic and basically never speak to another physician, while you practice medicine the same way you always have.