By Amy Zellers, DO

I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Ben Carson speak these somber words in Washington, D.C. in late October of 2021 … so soft spoken, yet so powerful.

ON THE EDGE OF A CLIFF

We are at the peak of a precipice in Medicine as well.

2020’s healthcare heroes have fallen as we simultaneously witness the death of science.

Physicians are losing their autonomy to a government that has granted itself the authority to practice medicine without a license, without having gone to medical school, without completing a 3-7 year residency and fellowship.

The doctor-patient relationship has been undermined by those flaunting “Google” medical degrees and by mainstream media that is hell-bent on manipulating us all for their own gain.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we (physicians out in the wilderness known as Primary Care) had no idea what we were up against.

We had nothing to offer terrified patients who fell ill or tested positive for the novel Coronavirus.

We didn’t have personal protective equipment to keep ourselves safe, but we stood ready, using makeshift supplies and sleeping in our garages… afraid of letting the spiked intruder into the sanctity of our homes.

When hospital administrators and government officials chided some of us for putting on masks (hardware store-bought N95s that we had purchased ourselves), we took them off, afraid of losing our jobs, and confused… because we knew what was happening across the globe.

“We don’t want to alarm the patients,” they lied as they scurried to hide the collusive Mafia-like relationships with the Group Purchasing Organizations that were the true root cause of the shortages in America’s healthcare supply chain.

When a few weeks later, the same administrators and government officials asked us to volunteer on the front lines, handing out paper bags with a single face shield and mask, our names hastily written with a Sharpie that was passed from person to person, we complied and got out there and saved lives.

Or we tried.

We went back to basics, buried our noses in textbooks, scoured the internet for research studies, and networked with other doctors across the globe, desperate to learn any pearls of wisdom that could possibly keep our patients from getting sick or dying.

Never in the history of our training nor our careers had we told patients with chest pain to stay home until it was clear they were having an MI, or reassured someone with aphasia or weakness that they might not be having a stroke. Yet, here we were, in the midst of a global pandemic, telling people who had fevers, coughs, and shortness of breath to stay home. Wear your mask (or bandana). Keep your distance. Do your part.

The few of us who were still in private practice continued to see patients in our offices, while the rest of us became overnight experts in telemedicine.

And when American innovation and incredibly resourceful scientists and engineers quickly devised ways to mass-produce personal protective equipment and figured out how to build ventilators using auto parts, we allowed ourselves to become auspiciously optimistic.

And then came a REAL glimmer of hope.

Some really smart scientists dug up research from the SARS era in 2004, and real-time studies began in the late winter of 2020. These studies suggested that a benign anti-malarial medication that we’d used for decades could stop the spike protein in vitro.

Many of us started having conversations with our patients about this medicine, telling them that maybe we had something that could possibly work. We told them that we thought that the risk of harm was relatively low, while the risk of possible death was unacceptably high… and many chose to try it.

MARCH 19, 2020. THE DAY THAT SCIENCE DIED.

And then came the fateful day when the President mentioned that medication by name in a daily briefing to a national audience—to the world—even boasting that “we possibly had a ‘game-changer’ in chloroquine.”

And immediately, the “playground bullies”– the mainstream media– poked fun at the suggestion that “fish cleaner” could treat COVID.

Within days, governors ordered pharmacists not to fill prescriptions for that medication. And some who were doing research with that medication had their studies halted.

It is on that precise day that science died and politics took over.

“POLITICAL” SCIENCE WON’T HELP YOU

Since then, the physician-patient relationship has been continuously undermined, and patient autonomy has been dying a slow death.

Once you allow the government into the exam room, it’s hard to get them out. And when you blindly believe that the mainstream media is providing you with “scientific” information, you choose a side in some crazy, made-up battle. But the virus is still a virus.

It will infect you no matter which side you choose. And “political” science won’t save you. We were back to having nothing to offer our patients except for fear and isolation.

And, as things turned out, that medication didn’t work as well as some had predicted and as we had initially hoped. But that’s how science, real science, works. It evolves. Scientists should not be silenced, censored, or ridiculed. Innovation happens through trial and error.

THE DANGERS OF TRIBALISM

As Americans who are used to instant gratification, we started looking for our own answers as we sat in isolation for over a year. We started doing our own “research” online. Overnight, everyone earned a medical degree through “Dr. Google” and by tweeting.

But our “research” was compromised, and biased . . . because, in our quest for answers, many of us split off into “tribes,” choosing to follow only those whose thoughts mirrored our own, blocking out and canceling anyone we disagreed with.

We created our own echo chambers on social media with like-minded people we had never met, and we shut out family and friends we’ve known our entire lives because they had different opinions.

And the virus raged on . . . but we understood more and had some new treatment options.

VACCINATION BECOMES POLITICIZED

And then, in record time, vaccines were on the horizon. And again we had hope. And when the President kept promising we would have a vaccine, the mainstream media “poo-poo”-d his bravado, again accusing and ridiculing him, dismissing his pledges as election-year grandstanding.

And when our current Vice President (then on the campaign trail) publicly undermined confidence in the promised vaccine, the people heard her, and many of them, too, thought it was too soon to trust it, too “experimental.”

This lack of confidence persists even today, as the vaccination rate amongst minorities remains low in our great country, a nation scarred by racism and slavery, which led to unforgivable injustices such as the Tuskegee experiment.

We must proceed with caution with movements that attempt to rewrite our history, for if we erase ALL of the painful parts, we will forget that it was doctors who worked for the U.S. Public Health Service who withheld treatment.

We don’t need to rewrite history or silence opposing viewpoints. We need to re-tell our stories accurately and contextually and respect ALL human lives so that none of these atrocities ever happen again.

THE VACCINE’S EFFECT ON THE PHYSICIAN-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP

The promised vaccines arrived, and many of us were finally able to breathe a huge sigh of relief. The mRNA vaccines effectively prevent severe disease and reduce mortality.

And yes, there are adverse events that can happen with vaccinations. Really, with anything you put into your body. And when you vaccinate a huge population in a short time, you will see adverse events.

And there are some people who won’t want the vaccine for these reasons. And they ask questions, and that should be encouraged and expected. Asking questions has always been ok. Patients should, and we, as physicians, should be encouraged to have these conversations.

But now the government says that all MUST take the shot, with a few exceptions. Physicians are told they can’t authorize vaccine exemptions because no one should be exempt. And people are losing their jobs.

And the response becomes worse than the disease itself because loss of jobs means loss of insurance, lack of preventive care, and an increase in illness burden. And physicians who answered the call from day 1 have their licenses suspended for even having these conversations with their patients.

There are a few bad doctors who spew misinformation, like there are a few bad teachers or a few bad cops. Social media would have you think that they are the majority.

But every physician I know wants the same thing… to be able to have a conversation with their patients without the government in the room controlling it. To be able to educate patients to make informed decisions for themselves, based on actual science (as we understand it at the time), and allow patients the respect and autonomy to direct their own healthcare.

Science started to die a slow death when we allowed the government to stop us from prescribing medications and refused to allow us to advocate for our patients who didn’t consent to treatment.

Now, many physicians won’t speak up because their licenses and livelihoods are on the line.

THE DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP IS SACRED.

And when we stop asking questions, we kill innovation. The geniuses who created new ways to administer treatments will stay silent, and the best and brightest of the next generation will avoid careers in medicine.

And science will remain dead.

We cannot allow human emotions, feelings, and politics to interfere with our ability to practice medicine.

We need to put the doctor-patient relationship back in the center of healthcare, where it belongs. ☤