I think this insults shamans. Snake oil salesmen or witchdoctors of old. There is very little rhyme or reason behind the superstition or OCD like behaviors thought to protect themselves.
I thought that contact tracing went away 3 years ago when it was found to be utterly ridiculous and an exercise in futility.
A one size fits all world, obviously. My mother in law (84) recently had surgery and has had some complications that aren’t necessarily unexpected for her age and type of surgery. However, she has seen several doctors (and several different types of doctor's) for the issue. One of the doctors is in her 50s and the other seems to be in their early 30s so recently out of medical school. Maybe he doesn’t have the experience yet but the way he went about treating my mother in law was a complete anathema to the older doctor. According to my wife she (the older doctor) seemed incessant at what he was prescribing for my MIL and laid out to them why that was. She basically said he’s following some script and was going to write him a letter as to why he was wrong.
You're fortunate to have found anyone with any insight. Having cared for elders the past two and a half years, I can testify that most doctors in my experience don't even do basic testing for them (i.e. D/B levels) unless asked. There's a lot of "well at this age....." talk and apparent desire to get to the next patient, but always enough time to ask about another covid shot, flu shot, adding yet another medication. I hate to think of what "care" will look like in even ten years. Vinay--maybe you can do an informal survey re why people are going to medical school. Many of us would really like to know what motivates these students--are they caring individuals who can't stand up to bureaucracy, are they financially motivated, do they buy what they're being told?
I am considering med school. The biggest thing holding me back? Concern about things like are written about in this article and whether I'd be able to successfully graduate without getting kicked out for asking hard questions and being critical of the status quo. (I'm one of those evaluate and find ways to do things better type of people.) Also? I would not cater to any "must have covid vax" nonsense and so I suspect it precludes me from working towards this. They wonder why there's a doctor shortage... perhaps they should look at their policies and see if people are being deterred away from medicine because of those policies.
I honestly don’t even know what to say because this whole situation is so ridiculous! There are NCAA tournament games going on this weekend in packed arenas around the country and St Patrick’s Day celebrations in pubs and bars. I suspect more than one person who attended this event and was “protected” will be at one of these or a similar event that is not. How exactly did this make a difference beyond virtue signaling??
“The Coddling of the American Mind” and Lukianoff’s latest “The Canceling of the American Mind” are worth a revisit. https://www.thecoddling.com For decades now, this fear based indoctrination has fueled safetyism which is the enemy of rational thought as it regresses the most ‘educated/indoctrinated’ away from the principles of personal responsibility and optimism and courage in the face of challenges toward a mentality of grievance and victimhood. We are becoming a nation of tyrannical cowards.
Binary thinking here Tracy, you can’t sum people to just one of their positions and think you are advancing the dialogue. Nuance is the result of rational discourse. I agree with you that we are engendered at birth and I see pure evil in the mutilation of children who suffer from gender dysphoria, and Haidt may not agree with us here, but his sound diagnosis of Safetyism is a separate issue.
Sorry, but I can't respect any "intellectual" who believes in "sex changes", that's like being a flat earther or a moon landing denier. So, he says a couple of nice things, I think he's a shill, and the "nice" things are just marketing.
I've been a rationalist for over half a century, and I'm super fed up with people making excuses.
I focus on the specific message, not the messenger. People I have fundamental disagreements with like Haidt still have my respect when they produce thoughtful commentary as he did in ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’. Tribal instincts are at the root of this ‘othering’ Tracy, exactly what Haidt was warning us about in chapter 3. If we keep demonizing those we have disagreements with we all loose don’t we?
Sure, but tribalism is not even a valid excuse... we're apes, we're tribal, duh. We need better arguments. Arguing "tribal" is neither here not there, it can't fix things.
My point is that you’re being ‘tribal’ by summing the complex personage that is Jonathan Haidt to one position you strongly disagree with him on. If we all do this to each other we loose any chance of learning from each other, we loose a common language, and this Tower of Babel we are collectively trying to build collapses.
My county is doing a small memorial garden for those we lost to COVID. It’s a small piece of land in an existing park. It’s not a huge effort. But to me it perpetuates the idea that this is something we should still be treating differently than other URIs. Is there one for flu? RSV?
Why should I believe we are back to normal if this is what we are still doing? Why should I believe that if in 2024 we are making gardens for those we lost to a respiratory virus that everyone will eventually get and making med students congregate outdoors? Why should I believe that every double sneeze or cough won’t be taken as evidence I’ve gotten this one virus and am being irresponsible for being out in the world?
I agree. Elevating covid deaths devalues the lives (and deaths) of others who succumbed to something else. During the covid years I lost family and friends to cancer, old age (they died alone, of course), suicide, and overdose. These loved ones aren't getting memorial gardens...
Imagine a proposal to make a memorial garden to those who died of vaccine-caused myocarditis and other covid vaccine deaths. Even if names were limited to deaths proven to be vaccine-caused, the county would resist it and that shows how political rather than empathetic this memorial garden is.
The currency of public health is trust. I was always taught that trust, for a professional, is a combination of ethics and competence. I am a layperson who doesn’t understand, beyond the basics, how vaccines work, so I need to trust the public health professionals. Seeing policies implemented that are clearly incompetent and unethical (even to a layperson) erodes that trust. I don’t understand why healthcare professionals continue to squander their currency recommending policies that do not stand up to even the lightest scrutiny.
"Trust" is an interesting ethical question. I've been watching the Medical Industrial Complex be convicted of wrong-doing, fined, derided, for many decades, watched as iatrogenic deaths surpass other deaths in hospitals.
I lost trust in anything in the Medical Industrial Complex decades ago!
If you're too young to know that history, you have an excuse to not know, but anyone over 40, frankly, has no excuse for not having already known that the Medical Industrial Complex has no interest whatsoever in our HEALTH, the ONLY driving force for the Medical Industrial Complex is to MAXIMISE PROFITS.
I hope Vinay's are mostly Leftists (probably not the case, but anyhoo), Leftists USED to be critics of the Medical Industrial Complex. The Right were the pro-Corporatism-Profits side.
Since covid hysteria, there's definitely been a shift to the Right, corporatism, from the Left, and tho the Right "seems" somewhat critical of excessive corporatism, I'm not sure it's honest.
Imagine how far we have fallen from the wartime medics, who risked their lives on a regular basis to provide healing to soldiers. And for all the doctors from days past, who did not hesitate to diagnose and treat at the bedside patients with unknown infectious diseases.
This history is a major reason why being a physician was so highly respected. Now we watch as that status is steadily eroded in the name of safety and compliance. Sad.
I guess now that most doctors are trained to primarily emphasize top-down, programmed pharmaceutical interventions for symptoms at the expense of thinking (w)holistically, we're destined to get more and more of this sort of absurdity.
While being an Intern and Resident (1986-90) involved many hours of work, often well beyond 60 hrs/week in clinical time (education time extra), the experience and exposure to multiple disease entities, clinical learning and practical skill set development was, in my opinion worth it and I did not regret it for the short time of my training. While we all joked about the “indentured servitude”, the large plurality of us were grateful and accepted this as best for our future career in medicine and patient care.
Now entering more the patient side of care, I am repulsed and appalled by the absurd fixation with Physicians presenting their “ Pronouns” (do they recognize me as a male XY?) and the failure to make effective eye contact and forsaking physical examination, for the EMR “god” and test ordering, thereby missing almost entirely the art and compassion of medicine.
It’s another sign of how elite institutions have lost their way. The most intellectually brittle and intolerant people are allowed to be uncompromising and those who disagree capitulate. As if any healthy community could sustain such a practice without become oppressive. The absurdity of this irrational practice is the school would not be required to go to such extreme lengths to accommodate a disabled person, whether student or employee. Saying an event must be moved outside in inclement weather would never be viewed as a reasonable accommodation. So Covid irrationalism allows fearful and dogmatic people to insist on accommodations that people who have actual physical conditions requiring accommodation cannot. Utterly irrational.
We have to disagree and try to inject some realism wherever we can but it’s hard—people cling to their beliefs and get so offended and defensive in the presence of alternative opinions.
It's virtue signaling, but for health. It will now never go away for a set of folks. We are in a new world of safety at all costs, even if the safety is 1/10 billion return.
I can only imagine that the universities are still being paid to do this from basically hidden money from the same govt and clandestine agencies that have been pushing toward totalitarian control . Sure maybe it’s just stupidity or virtue signaling but given the large overall shifts that we are seeing societally, financially etc . These kind of actions keep the fear going thereby creating the ability to create the same situation all
Over again when a “ novel” pathogen conveniently shows up, and it keeps people
Agree with all your comments. It’s distressing to me to see young people in masks in particular. But—I still see physician colleagues masking. Regular people get it—80+% of my patients don’t want to wear masks and I agree with that.
Wachter is deranged... I will never forget his little twitter thread about his fall in the shower when he finally got Covid... "But I followed all of the masking and isolation guidelines...". He didn't learn anything from that either.
On another topic, in my day, Maych Day was a more private day. Those of use who got our first choices were happy but those who knew they did not could choose to stay home. Making it so public eliminates one’s privacy & sometimes disappointment. So strange.
Medical schools have regressed to shamanism. Should we trust any doctor who went to med school over the past decade? COVID and climate change public health hysterias are the new apocalypto: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/climate-change-esg-un-wef-apocalypto
I think this insults shamans. Snake oil salesmen or witchdoctors of old. There is very little rhyme or reason behind the superstition or OCD like behaviors thought to protect themselves.
I thought that contact tracing went away 3 years ago when it was found to be utterly ridiculous and an exercise in futility.
I would go to a shaman before a new grad from UCSF.....
A one size fits all world, obviously. My mother in law (84) recently had surgery and has had some complications that aren’t necessarily unexpected for her age and type of surgery. However, she has seen several doctors (and several different types of doctor's) for the issue. One of the doctors is in her 50s and the other seems to be in their early 30s so recently out of medical school. Maybe he doesn’t have the experience yet but the way he went about treating my mother in law was a complete anathema to the older doctor. According to my wife she (the older doctor) seemed incessant at what he was prescribing for my MIL and laid out to them why that was. She basically said he’s following some script and was going to write him a letter as to why he was wrong.
You're fortunate to have found anyone with any insight. Having cared for elders the past two and a half years, I can testify that most doctors in my experience don't even do basic testing for them (i.e. D/B levels) unless asked. There's a lot of "well at this age....." talk and apparent desire to get to the next patient, but always enough time to ask about another covid shot, flu shot, adding yet another medication. I hate to think of what "care" will look like in even ten years. Vinay--maybe you can do an informal survey re why people are going to medical school. Many of us would really like to know what motivates these students--are they caring individuals who can't stand up to bureaucracy, are they financially motivated, do they buy what they're being told?
I am considering med school. The biggest thing holding me back? Concern about things like are written about in this article and whether I'd be able to successfully graduate without getting kicked out for asking hard questions and being critical of the status quo. (I'm one of those evaluate and find ways to do things better type of people.) Also? I would not cater to any "must have covid vax" nonsense and so I suspect it precludes me from working towards this. They wonder why there's a doctor shortage... perhaps they should look at their policies and see if people are being deterred away from medicine because of those policies.
I honestly don’t even know what to say because this whole situation is so ridiculous! There are NCAA tournament games going on this weekend in packed arenas around the country and St Patrick’s Day celebrations in pubs and bars. I suspect more than one person who attended this event and was “protected” will be at one of these or a similar event that is not. How exactly did this make a difference beyond virtue signaling??
Education does not equate to intelligence.
There are people with remarkable agile intelligence who are stupid
Bonhoeffer
“The Coddling of the American Mind” and Lukianoff’s latest “The Canceling of the American Mind” are worth a revisit. https://www.thecoddling.com For decades now, this fear based indoctrination has fueled safetyism which is the enemy of rational thought as it regresses the most ‘educated/indoctrinated’ away from the principles of personal responsibility and optimism and courage in the face of challenges toward a mentality of grievance and victimhood. We are becoming a nation of tyrannical cowards.
For more on the root causes of this malady. https://open.substack.com/pub/jonathanhaidt/p/antisemitism-on-campus?r=tn6w0&utm_medium=ios
Bah, Haidt is a virtue signaller just like the rest of'em.
He freakin believes gendered souls can be born in wrong bodies! He's controlled opposition.
Binary thinking here Tracy, you can’t sum people to just one of their positions and think you are advancing the dialogue. Nuance is the result of rational discourse. I agree with you that we are engendered at birth and I see pure evil in the mutilation of children who suffer from gender dysphoria, and Haidt may not agree with us here, but his sound diagnosis of Safetyism is a separate issue.
Sorry, but I can't respect any "intellectual" who believes in "sex changes", that's like being a flat earther or a moon landing denier. So, he says a couple of nice things, I think he's a shill, and the "nice" things are just marketing.
I've been a rationalist for over half a century, and I'm super fed up with people making excuses.
I focus on the specific message, not the messenger. People I have fundamental disagreements with like Haidt still have my respect when they produce thoughtful commentary as he did in ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’. Tribal instincts are at the root of this ‘othering’ Tracy, exactly what Haidt was warning us about in chapter 3. If we keep demonizing those we have disagreements with we all loose don’t we?
Sure, but tribalism is not even a valid excuse... we're apes, we're tribal, duh. We need better arguments. Arguing "tribal" is neither here not there, it can't fix things.
My point is that you’re being ‘tribal’ by summing the complex personage that is Jonathan Haidt to one position you strongly disagree with him on. If we all do this to each other we loose any chance of learning from each other, we loose a common language, and this Tower of Babel we are collectively trying to build collapses.
My county is doing a small memorial garden for those we lost to COVID. It’s a small piece of land in an existing park. It’s not a huge effort. But to me it perpetuates the idea that this is something we should still be treating differently than other URIs. Is there one for flu? RSV?
Why should I believe we are back to normal if this is what we are still doing? Why should I believe that if in 2024 we are making gardens for those we lost to a respiratory virus that everyone will eventually get and making med students congregate outdoors? Why should I believe that every double sneeze or cough won’t be taken as evidence I’ve gotten this one virus and am being irresponsible for being out in the world?
I hate it here.
I agree. Elevating covid deaths devalues the lives (and deaths) of others who succumbed to something else. During the covid years I lost family and friends to cancer, old age (they died alone, of course), suicide, and overdose. These loved ones aren't getting memorial gardens...
Imagine a proposal to make a memorial garden to those who died of vaccine-caused myocarditis and other covid vaccine deaths. Even if names were limited to deaths proven to be vaccine-caused, the county would resist it and that shows how political rather than empathetic this memorial garden is.
We need a memorial to the loss of sanity.
I wonder if the guy that died falling from a ladder and tested positive for COVID post-mortem got buried in the nice garden.
The currency of public health is trust. I was always taught that trust, for a professional, is a combination of ethics and competence. I am a layperson who doesn’t understand, beyond the basics, how vaccines work, so I need to trust the public health professionals. Seeing policies implemented that are clearly incompetent and unethical (even to a layperson) erodes that trust. I don’t understand why healthcare professionals continue to squander their currency recommending policies that do not stand up to even the lightest scrutiny.
"Trust" is an interesting ethical question. I've been watching the Medical Industrial Complex be convicted of wrong-doing, fined, derided, for many decades, watched as iatrogenic deaths surpass other deaths in hospitals.
I lost trust in anything in the Medical Industrial Complex decades ago!
If you're too young to know that history, you have an excuse to not know, but anyone over 40, frankly, has no excuse for not having already known that the Medical Industrial Complex has no interest whatsoever in our HEALTH, the ONLY driving force for the Medical Industrial Complex is to MAXIMISE PROFITS.
I hope Vinay's are mostly Leftists (probably not the case, but anyhoo), Leftists USED to be critics of the Medical Industrial Complex. The Right were the pro-Corporatism-Profits side.
Since covid hysteria, there's definitely been a shift to the Right, corporatism, from the Left, and tho the Right "seems" somewhat critical of excessive corporatism, I'm not sure it's honest.
Imagine how far we have fallen from the wartime medics, who risked their lives on a regular basis to provide healing to soldiers. And for all the doctors from days past, who did not hesitate to diagnose and treat at the bedside patients with unknown infectious diseases.
This history is a major reason why being a physician was so highly respected. Now we watch as that status is steadily eroded in the name of safety and compliance. Sad.
Completely agree. Physicians of the 30’s - 60’s often at great risk and time, dedicated themselves to the “noble” profession. Consider:
https://www.life.com/history/w-eugene-smiths-landmark-photo-essay-country-doctor/
I guess now that most doctors are trained to primarily emphasize top-down, programmed pharmaceutical interventions for symptoms at the expense of thinking (w)holistically, we're destined to get more and more of this sort of absurdity.
Universities are now the dumbest places on earth.
So true
While being an Intern and Resident (1986-90) involved many hours of work, often well beyond 60 hrs/week in clinical time (education time extra), the experience and exposure to multiple disease entities, clinical learning and practical skill set development was, in my opinion worth it and I did not regret it for the short time of my training. While we all joked about the “indentured servitude”, the large plurality of us were grateful and accepted this as best for our future career in medicine and patient care.
Now entering more the patient side of care, I am repulsed and appalled by the absurd fixation with Physicians presenting their “ Pronouns” (do they recognize me as a male XY?) and the failure to make effective eye contact and forsaking physical examination, for the EMR “god” and test ordering, thereby missing almost entirely the art and compassion of medicine.
It’s another sign of how elite institutions have lost their way. The most intellectually brittle and intolerant people are allowed to be uncompromising and those who disagree capitulate. As if any healthy community could sustain such a practice without become oppressive. The absurdity of this irrational practice is the school would not be required to go to such extreme lengths to accommodate a disabled person, whether student or employee. Saying an event must be moved outside in inclement weather would never be viewed as a reasonable accommodation. So Covid irrationalism allows fearful and dogmatic people to insist on accommodations that people who have actual physical conditions requiring accommodation cannot. Utterly irrational.
We have to disagree and try to inject some realism wherever we can but it’s hard—people cling to their beliefs and get so offended and defensive in the presence of alternative opinions.
It's virtue signaling, but for health. It will now never go away for a set of folks. We are in a new world of safety at all costs, even if the safety is 1/10 billion return.
Safetyism is the real plage of the turn of the century. We should wage war against safetyism. I'm so done with this bs.
I can only imagine that the universities are still being paid to do this from basically hidden money from the same govt and clandestine agencies that have been pushing toward totalitarian control . Sure maybe it’s just stupidity or virtue signaling but given the large overall shifts that we are seeing societally, financially etc . These kind of actions keep the fear going thereby creating the ability to create the same situation all
Over again when a “ novel” pathogen conveniently shows up, and it keeps people
Separate and still vaxxing which is $
Good for him in speaking out. What an eye rolling decision on behalf of UCSF. What a complete joke
Agree with all your comments. It’s distressing to me to see young people in masks in particular. But—I still see physician colleagues masking. Regular people get it—80+% of my patients don’t want to wear masks and I agree with that.
This sounds like Bob Wachter 100%. Vinay, you asked who made this policy, though I'm sure you already thought or knew the actual answer.
Bob Wachter is only one of hundred top UCSF administrators, all of whom think, speak, and act in lockstep.
Wachter is deranged... I will never forget his little twitter thread about his fall in the shower when he finally got Covid... "But I followed all of the masking and isolation guidelines...". He didn't learn anything from that either.
So stupid but not surprising.
On another topic, in my day, Maych Day was a more private day. Those of use who got our first choices were happy but those who knew they did not could choose to stay home. Making it so public eliminates one’s privacy & sometimes disappointment. So strange.