Should Doctors Comment about Politics?

John Mandrola kicks the hornet's nest.

Previously, I defended the thesis that doctors should not encourage patients to vote in clinic. It disrupts visits and it's hard to avoid it being coercive. You can read those arguments here.

John Mandorla goes further. He argues doctors shouldn’t talk about politics in the public sphere.

Hundreds of doctors gleefully let him know he was wrong. They cited abortion and guns as two domains where medical doctors must comment and advocate for specific candidates. As consummate professionals, they told John to stay in his FUCKING lane!

I admit that I respectfully disagree with John. I think clinicians are free, like all citizens, to be politically vocal. But I have several points that have not been discussed.

1. It's interesting to me that most (nearly all) doctors who criticized John cited issues that they believe favor democrats. I didn't see any accounts cite issues in health policy that favor republicans. School closure, masking 2 year olds, and snitch lines— what's that, you ask?

   

Republicans are more distrustful or government intervention than Democrats and if governments are implementing drastic, unprecedented policy (without evidence) that prior can be helpful. Yet no one who criticized John pushed for Republicans.

2. No doctor addressed the issue of whether their tweets are persuasive. I recently saw this tweet in my feed

   

   It stuck me as a mundane platitude and boring. Also, I was unaware of anyone envying the health care of Minnesota. Minnesota is home to many device companies that sell unproven products. They famously fund politicians to lobby for more permissive rules. Minnesota is also home to the Mayo clinic, which has opposed sensible regulation and does a lot of crazy things. Like advocate for treating smoldering myeloma. Just crazy. See the excellent Stat piece this week.

   

   Related to that I don't know anyone who has said anything original about abortion or guns in my entire life, and I doubt many people are persuadable. Most American have somewhat center views.

3. Some patients may check Twitter and be offended. I think this is John’s point. Many days it is best for patients to not know exactly their doctor’s political ideas in clinic. Lest these interfere in care. Yet on the other hand, doctors are citizens too. In this debate, I fall on the side that free speech should win. Just that it isn't interesting or helpful. But things can get out of control. If someone's account is vehement about climate change and other issues that lean Democrat for instance. If they wear many of the pins and symbols on their badge and coat that also lean Democrat, and then if they tweet this…

Imagine your baby is in the nursery and you are wearing a MAGA hat and the doctor says ‘the health of your baby depends on your vote’. That seems awfully coercive and a parent may worry what exactly the doctor means. What will they do to the baby if I vote wrong?

Doctors should be free to say whatever they want on the Internet. Whether any of it is interesting or helpful is open to debate. Whether it helps or hurts their practice is unknown. As for me, I will just mute the most vehement political doctor accounts. I suspect John will do the same.

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