Far be it from me to dispute a Gemara. I’m not sure what the gemara means, maybe it’s esoteric, maybe not. but I do know what modern science says, and there really isn’t a difference between two people, one Jewish and one not Jewish, where the only difference is their religion, in regard to medical treatment. Does a Ger’s physical biology change when they become Jewish? Sometimes even in halacha seforim you see errors. The Aruch Hashulchan said that one of the issues with drinking milk in America is that they are “known to mix milk of pigs into their milk”. Someone obviously told him that, but it isn’t true, he was misinformed.
Rabeinu Avraham Ben Harambam, who was a Rishon writes this:
א נתחייב מפני גודל מעלת חכמי התלמוד ותכונתם לשלמות תכונתם בפירוש התורה ובדקדוקיה ויושר אמריהם בביאור כלליה ופרטיה, שנטען להם ונעמיד דעתם בכל אמריהם ברפואות ובחכמת הטבע והתכונה, [ולהאמין] אותן כאשר נאמין אותן בפירוש התורה, שתכלית חכמתה בידם, ולהם נמסרה להורותה לבני אדם, כעניין שנאמר “על פי התורה אשר יורוך” וגו’.
“We are not obliged, on account of the great superiority of the sages of the Talmud, and their expertise in their explanations of the Torah and its details, and the truth of their sayings in the explanation of its general principles and details, to defend them and uphold their views in all of their sayings in medicine, in science and in astronomy, or to believe them [in those matters] as we believe them regarding the explanation of the Torah… we find that they made medicinally related statements in the Gemara which have not been justified or validated…”
The point is that this approach isn’t Apikorsus. You may have been taught differently, and if you were taught that it is apikorsus, you were taught wrong.
But back to kuvult’s question, if you are a surgeon and you are about to treat a patient, what are the differences?