What is going on with Ivermectin? At one point, I believed a well-cited explanation on what happened with Hydroxychloroquine could explain the massive manipulations involved in the ongoing pandemic to an open and critical mind. By now, it seems that we are all so weary that analyzing competing narratives might be too much work to change minds. I don’t know how Facebook censors respond to ivermectin these days, but these 2 articles shed light on the anti-ivermectin propaganda.

https://trialsitenews.com/mercks-deadly-vioxx-playbook-redux-a-debunked-smear-campaign-against-its-competing-drug-the-fda-approved-nobel-prize-honored-ivermectin/

https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/the-great-ivermectin-deworming-hoax/article_19b8f2a6-0f29-11ec-94c1-4725bf4978c6.html

Meanwhile, the AMA is recommending against the drug:

https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-apha-ashp-statement-ending-use-ivermectin-treat-covid-19

Hello again. I have descended and arisen again. I feel like a canary in a coal mine. I have been ill. But I had a breakthrough in clarity this last weekend that came and faded, and then surged today. It is getting to be time to take steps to move forward in shifting my life, and this writing is part of it.

Who is my target audience? You are. The right people will find this message. I have a lot of kinks to work out, but I will get there by doing the work. The next step is hosting groups, building community around natural health. I am a physician who sees through the bullshit, and sees a way out. I have been stuck for a long time in seeing the bullshit without seeing a way out. It is hard when you are depressed or exhausted or insecure as I have been. I am so fortunate to have a team of people who support me in my corner. I don’t feel I deserve it, but it exists, and I will use that support to step into the work that I need to do.

I want to share what clarity I find. Lately, it is Meryl Nass who has been the most illuminating voice for me. It may be someone else for you, but I’m just going to shine my light the best way I know how.

So… what’s new? Well, Many health care organizations are requiring the COVID-19 vaccine or their employees will be fired. There is an opportunity for resistance here, because there are a lot of employees who don’t want the shot. But losing a job is a tough pill to swallow. I am fortunate that my job will allow me to get tested weekly as an alternative to the shot. I don’t think that will last long, but the pressure is not on yet.

I have been silent on social media for the last 6 months. I have just been too insecure I guess. I haven’t wanted to engage with anyone. I haven’t wanted arguments etc. But it is important to get my words out. I want to use them in a strategic way to market myself without outting myself completely. I recognize I am a small voice now, but as a physician, that I have a powerful potential. It’s just so unrealized at this point. So I am confused about how easy or difficult it will be to “stay under the radar.”

Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are big stories to understand the huge manipulations and corruption that is taking place. The constant lies and misrepresentations in the media are obvious from the other side, but so jarring when you are still stuck in it. I have been stuck in it. I have been aware of the problem, but without a solution, so I was still stuck in it. Blech!

There was an article in the NEJM today showing failing protection against the delta variant in health care workers. Of course there is. It will be used to support the boosters. Of course it will. Not evidence of vaccine failure, but of the need for the booster. 2 head vaccine regulators at the FDA are resigning, but they are meeting on the 17th to give the white house their approval of the booster program. Off it will go. Whoosh!

I am planning to share more of my writing, more of my thinking. I am not sure if this will continue to be the home, but it will do for now. Frankly, I have been feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. I just found a burst of energy, and I don’t expect it to last. My sleep has been irregular. But enough about that, what topics am I so interested in these days?

I am interested in medical controversy. I am curious about medical censorship. Ivermectin, public policy and the new vaccine. It is worth noting that I tuned into a 2 hour series of interviews hosted by “Millions against the Medical Mandate”, and that 2 of the most well known voices that criticize vaccines, Robert Kennedy Jr and Del Bigtree had their Instagram channels taken down as the broadcast began. I don’t use Instagram, but they reached 100s of thousands with their messages, and the tech companies removed their access. Facebook is canceling “medical misinformation” that could hurt the public health agenda to promote vaccine adoptance. So do I want to reach a Facebook or Twitter audience? How do I do it if they censor? Here’s my simple message:

Did anyone notice that I never posted a COVID-19 injection selfie? I declined to receive the shot. I don’t plan to reply to comments here, but send me a message if you would like to have a phone or video chat to discuss the topic.

My parents are getting the shot. My friends are getting the shot. People don’t know what to do, but they are being told they will need it for travel or to keep their jobs. The media is marketing this thing, but it is not yet required. I don’t want to wait any longer because people are signing up now and I want to reach them if I can.

I am a family medicine physician and I recently quit my job. I would have to say the whole process of medical school and residency was a struggle. Something about my personality gave me just enough faith in the system and endurance to push through. The early arc of my career has already been somewhat abnormal in the relatively sparse workload I ever took on. My first job was at a Federally Qualified Health Center (caring for low income and uninsured people) covering for just 3 months while another provider was out on maternity leave (beginning about 4 months after finishing residency). The medical director is a caring, hardworking man about my parent’s age, and he was interested in holistic medicine in medical school and he goes to conferences on those topics and he even supervises group acupuncture at the clinic. My impression is that the clinic does the best they can, navigating the many bureaucratic realities that are necessary to receive payments from medicare, medicaid, and insurance companies and to qualify for grant money. The general force of those realities leads to short visits with people who have complicated stories that likely aren’t curable or fixable with either the prescriptions or the referrals I could order.

After 3 months, I was toast. I was ready to call it quits for good, and I wasn’t really sure what would be next. This was the clinic that I had very carefully selected for it’s good leadership, and from my possibly narrow lens, I felt I knew that responding to any of the recruiters contacting me about positions for doctors like me from all over the country wouldn’t meaningfully improve the situation for me. I had planned to go to several personal retreats, but the COVID-19 phenomenon quashed those plans. I moved through a deep funk. A kind of existential depression. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for doctors to suffer from poor mental health and even resort to suicide (some 400/year). I never found myself in any kind of perilous situation, but if I am being honest, I was disturbed by those thoughts. There just was no way out that I could see from this career that I couldn’t manage. Did I mention the $300k in student loans?

Things shifted with time. Resetting with meditation, gentle exercise, and rest; I found my footing again. I was in a stable situation with my parents in Omaha with finally nothing to do but focus on myself. Even as the pandemic took off, I felt I had already been through such a personal difficulty, that the gravity of the global situation always seemed somehow navigable by comparison to my impossible career path. I began cooking and making many calls and leading Zooms to support the community of my friends in the early pandemic when much was still unknown.

When George Floyd was killed, I resisted the impulse to drive to Minneapolis immediately. I had participated in BLM marches and rallies over the previous 3 years, and I saw footage of buildings in my neighborhood being destroyed. My friends described community building efforts like never before in the aftermath, but that work was insulated to people on the ground. I had agreed to tend to a friend’s farm animals in NE while his family was on an annual camping trip, giving me a break from my parent’s home, and since there wasn’t an obvious role for me in MN anyways, I took the opportunity to ground my experience with the land. While absorbing and processing the news as I could. I decided that one of the best things I could do to support the community most affected, would be to return to the clinic I had previously left, in North Minneapolis. It has a unique history in being designed for the black community and governed by a community board.

On returning, I set limits on my capacity, only three half-days per week. I was paid for 13.5 hours of work. But as far as I could tell, it felt like a full time job. A half day of clinic is 11 patients scheduled back to back in 20 minute slots. This mostly worked for me. I showed up charged up, and I gave my best effort to help people. I went above and beyond, and I would say I continued thriving through the fall. I had meaningful interactions with patients, and I felt like I was making a positive impact. It didn’t bother me that I stayed late to finish paperwork each day when the total volume turned down to that level.

A shift was noted maybe in December. I started to think that maybe I would want to travel again in February. I didn’t have a clear goal, but something about traveling to get away from the winter cold that extends for 6 months in MN. I imagined meeting doctors, camping, playing music, and just enjoying life when the pandemic is supposed to be keeping us stuck and terrified.

I was paying close attention to the vaccine issue. In fact, I had started digging in during the late spring while I was unemployed. I watched a 9 part docu-series from Ty and Charlene Bollinger that obviously was biased towards vaccine criticism, but my impression was that there were in fact reasonable perspectives to consider from the other side, and that it wasn’t fair to simply dismiss all vaccine criticism without thinking as I had routinely witnessed in my medical training.

So, in December, as the vaccine was coming out, I knew that it would be coming to the clinic, and my first impulse was, maybe I can show up here? Maybe I can ask a few reasonable questions that I pull from the sources that I have learned to consider over the last 6 months, and I engage my colleagues and the clinic in a healthy dialogue. Before I just leave, maybe I can make a difference in this critical moment of this novel “vaccine” rollout. On Dec 21st, I answered an employee survey that I would not be willing to receive the vaccine. I told them that I would consider information presented to me, and that I would be amenable to talking with my boss about it in person or on the phone. I actually created that meeting for myself, because I hoped there might be some slim chance that he would be interested or curious about my position. Well, he wasn’t. He acknowledged that the clinic wouldn’t mandate it, but that he thought I ought to get it for our patient’s sake, or even just my grandmother’s sake. I was a bit disappointed, but I understood that he has worked at the helm of this organization for a number of years, and following the public health advice he is hearing from the authorities and bringing it to the community in need of basic health resources is his mission. He is hopeful that the vaccine will be the gamechanger in the pandemic that it is hoped to be. The clinic received 300 doses, enough for the whole clinic and admin staff. I think something like 220 received it, but I was not one of them.

I had one encounter with an older nurse practitioner who asked if I had had it yet, and I shared honestly that I didn’t plan to. “Well, why not?” I suddenly realized there was no escape from my brash confrontation to the system. I suggested that the risk the virus poses to me, while not zero, is not high, and that the vaccine is still in it’s very early days with limited data. I then left the room to avoid further conversation.

So as January continued, I finally did a scary thing and told my boss that I planned to leave in February. I spoke to my therapist to kind of build up my courage and then I did it. I wrote an email and it was graciously received. We spoke in the office and I felt a little disoriented by the conversation. He seems to want well for me, and the clinic would be glad to have me back in the future it seems.

On my last day of clinic (working in the COVID clinic) my car had a flat tire. It had been making sounds, and it just ran out. I called a Lyft and got to the clinic, scatterbrained, but it was fine. I was anxious, but it was a quiet shift, and I made it through. I had a friend come pick me up and we changed the tire in the cold and I got home. I took it to the shop and it was not only the tire, but the brakes were shot. A $1300 repair. Fine. I was glad it was fixable. I drove to Omaha on Saturday because my roommate had his 3 kids home and I just needed some place to think. I had some emails and calls to make, and the kids take my attention off task as long as they are awake.

In Omaha, I read a book from Rudolf Steiner. I had been curious about him for some time. I was kind of in a weird mood. Distant from my parents. I made my calls and I was kind of exhausted. I started to spiral. Fear and just despair. Whatever my big idea was going to be, I suddenly had nothing but doubts. I was blue. I drove to see my farmer friend (a pastor) and that was a bit awkward. I was nervous, and not totally myself. His rural friend who I had sparred with on FB in the past was working on a truck in the garage. His wife made a casserole and cookies and I played mastermind with his daughter. I saw his new cow and he sent me with ½ a gallon of fresh milk.

I was still worried about my car, but I made it back to MN. I had an uplifting call on the way with a disillusioned psychiatrist-friend who appreciates my courage. But then I moved into an icebox. My roommate keeps it COLD in the house. His kids left for their mother’s, and since he thrives in the winter, he likes the thermostat in the 30s or 40s. Our compromise is the upper 50s, but that is still cold for me! The forecast was near 0* for 10 days. I had this interview on Friday about radical self love and shadow work. My bucket was empty but I gave it my best shot. The interviewer asked about an experience I had had with the shadow. I fumbled, but I spoke about when I had left the job and was so discouraged about my future in medicine. I had written a song about the experience and played it.

Over the weekend, I attended a conference on psychedelics, for medical providers. I feel like a curious outsider to that culture, but I can seem to pass. About 200 attendees on Zoom, hosted by PRATI in CO. Apparently there are a number of doctors using ketamine for treatment resistant depression and probably a few other indications. They anticipate using MDMA in a couple years and I think psilocybin in 3 or something like that? But people are getting prepared. And the conference was interactive in a lovely way so that we could see each other and had numerous breakout rooms. I was open about my interest in a holistic health clinic, but not planning on one the works with psychedelics directly.

So, it’s gotten to be a long story already, but I’m only just getting to the point. I have a dream! It’s called The Good Life Clinic, and it is the project for how I do the work of supporting human flourishing. I have been doing extensive exploration and study and travel to learn about holistic health from a broader perspective than the medical curriculum presented during my education which I am afraid is missing the keys to vibrant health. Holistic health is a big pot, and even organizing the ingredients is a big job. I am working on myself, and I am a work-in-progress. But my plan is to also support others in their self-healing journey. I am ready to change the paradigm. Western medicine has its place, but there is a natural healing element that can be maximized, and we generally are missing the boat on that front from within the system. The best resource I have on the topic at the moment is Lissa Rankin’s book (Mind Over Medicine) which I’m currently reading. I am hot on the trail! I have been a member of her online community for the last 6 months. 

Early on, I was really excited about addressing dietary problems. I was a nutrition major and I just thought it was obvious that collectively, we are eating too much junk, not enough nutrient-rich foods, and that making changes could have the biggest public health impact. I didn’t want to be a public health researcher, I wanted to be a physician, who somehow would motivationally interview my patients into better eating habits. I was excited about Dean Ornish and his scientific papers that described reversing heart disease. I went to meet him when he presented at Esalen in Oct ‘19. He signed my book on reversing heart disease, and I gave that signed copy to Bernie Sanders at a rally in MN in Nov ‘19! That is one of my favorite stories. 

When Dean Ornish spoke at Esalen, Shauna Shapiro had curated the week with presenters on healthy aging, and had also recruited Dan Siegel. He blew me away with his descriptions of consciousness and tools for parents and therapists to work with their clients and children. I met an amazing woman who came from St. Louis to meet her inspiration like I had, my Dean was her Dan.  She worked with her husband as a holistic PT in St. Louis and had built a brand out of her dream to use toys to teach loving connection skills through play. Generation Mindful.

I also participated in James Gordon’s mind-body skills groups the following week at Esalen, in Oct ‘19. My group had it’s hitches, but I loved the model. I loved the groups, and I could see myself taking the reins and running with his model. I did the advanced training in Nov 2020 online, which gave me the skills and training to lead my first group Nov-Jan ‘21. My second group starts on Valentine’s day. These are the early steps of my “Good Life Clinic”. I haven’t charged any fees yet, but I am hoping to link a payment system to this process of doing the work that feels more aligned with authentic healing.

And at the same time, I can easily spiral into fear, stuckness and self-doubt. I believe in this vision I have, but there is a lot of hard work ahead, and I am looking for community acknowledgement and support that this dream is worth facing the challenges as I move forward. I am sharing because ultimately, I think that in telling the story, I am taking a step into bringing my dream into reality, which is the work I am here for. Thank you for reading. May we all learn to support our own and our collective human flourishing.

Can you send me a couple articles to help me make an informed decision about the vaccine for myself?

This is exactly the kind of question that I would like to answer for my friends. Unfortunately, it is also overwhelmingly complicated, and I hesitate for fear of making things worse. I think one on one conversations are a good place to tease out where a person is starting from, and what matters to them in their decision making. For the sake of this writing, I am planning to share 3 articles, and hopeful I can give fair context to help place them in the informational ecosystem from where they originate.

To begin, I’ll bring up a role model who as a public figure, and alternative health author, has taken to social media to defend and promote the vaccine for public health reasons. Lissa Rankin is concerned that criticisms of vaccines lead to hesitancy which is actively harmful for public health. She has published her take on the various issues, and in the writing invokes a frontline physician and a vaccine hesitant intellectual, here: https://lissarankin.com/a-front-line-covid-er-doctor-a-vaccine-hesitant-intellectual-answer-the-question-should-front-line-health-care-workers-get-vaccinated-now/

From my perspective, the information playing field is weighted with the interests of the pharmaceutical companies being protected. I believe that the television news (CNN, ABC, NBC) and written and audio broadcasts including the NYT, NPR and even the algorithms on social media (twitter, facebook) effectively filter content in a way that does not allow representation of  valid vaccine criticism. From Lissa’s perspective, this may be a good thing because vaccine criticisms tend to manipulate and mislead their audience in a way that is generally harmful. So I advise using plenty of critical thinking and skepticism when engaging with content from vaccine detractors, but differing from Lissa, I do encourage you to consider their perspective for yourself. 

In my opinion, RFK Jr is the most well-balanced voice among the vaccine critics, and because of that status, he is often strongly rebuked in the mainstream media. His niece, who is a physician, wrote an op-ed which was published in the NYT criticizing both his arguments and his character. He wrote a response, but it was not published on the NYT, and instead is only available on the website associated with his vaccine critical advocacy, the Children’s Health Defense. Here is that article: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/new-york-times-kerry-meltzer-covid-vaccines/

Finally, as a 3rd option, here is a personal blog from a friend of a friend. I know little of the author, only that she is a scientist and vegan, and she is sharing her perspective much in the way I might try to do on this blog. Here’s that link: https://sarinafarb.medium.com/covid19-vaccination-one-size-does-not-fit-all-c5dbf55df688

This morning I was considering speaking on a conference call with clinic staff where I work, and where the vaccine is being heavily promoted. Our clinic administered the first 20 doses of the Moderna product to employees this morning. I have responded to a survey indicating that I am not willing to receive the vaccine at this time. I imagine sharing these thoughts in a video for social media. The time I think is coming for that kind of activism, and the response it generates will be worth navigating… I think. Here is a brief writing of what I might have said on that clinic meeting:

Hello, before I say anything, I just want to voice that I am open to further discussion about my position, and about your decision on whether or not to receive the vaccine. I am choosing to wait at this time for a couple reasons which I’d like to share. First, I hesitate with the terminology; since a “vaccine” as I understand it, should have the antigenic components to which our immune system generates antibodies. In this case, the injection contains the genetic coding sequence for the spike protein which is then generated in our own human cells. It’s an interesting idea, and it might work, but it is not a vaccine in the traditional sense of that word. Second, the studies that were done to get it approved were completed by the pharmaceutical industry that benefits financially from its approval for use and distribution. They know how to design studies that satisfy the lowest bar for approval, and there is not effective oversight for long-term safety. This product has not been fully evaluated and approved by the FDA, it was granted an emergency authorization for use due to circumstances of the pandemic, and so from my perspective, appropriate caution is warranted. I don’t yet know if the benefits are greater than the harms. I’m not in a position to advise against the vaccine, because there isn’t evidence now that it is more dangerous than beneficial, but I am here to simply voice my uncertainty in the setting of a medical industry that is rapidly promoting its use. It is not mandatory now, so you have the opportunity to decide for yourself. As do I, as a physician currently seeing patients. I am at low-risk for severe disease from COVID (and not zero risk), and I am choosing to delay on receiving the vaccine that is being distributed to my colleagues today.

I am a conscientious objector to the COVID vaccine. I am a millennial who graduated from medical school in 2016, which means my Facebook feed is filled with my peers who are bravely and proudly receiving the shot in a bid to promote public confidence, hopeful for a path out of this pandemic which has been so challenging for so many of us.

    Since the first days, we have heard from Bill Gates and others that the way out of this will be through the vaccine, which we initially thought would take years to develop. Operation Warp Speed was announced on the evening news at our house, with the plans to manufacture a supply of the vaccine while the testing was being completed to expedite the relief from the pandemic. At the time, I was a doctor out of work, living with my parents after taking time for a personal retreat. The clinic where I had recently worked, and clinics everywhere were seeing very few patients as people were too afraid of exposure to seek care.

    I went back to Minneapolis and to the clinic in July. I have been there on a part-time schedule, seeing mostly patients who were screened as non-infectious and had concerns that outweighed their virus concerns. Occasionally, I also worked in the COVID screening clinic with full PPE and did see a few patients who needed hospital care for their deteriorating condition. For the majority, it was simply a question of whether they needed to quarantine to prevent spread of the infection because they had had symptoms that were concerning for it.

    I have always been interested in holistic health. To me, that means paying attention to the food we eat, the way we move, as well as the quality of our relationships, and the way we manage stress. To be complete, it includes everything, including our finances, our emotions, our jobs and our spirituality. In the conventional system, it can be hard to address, or even identify the root causes for the problems that lead to the complaints that show up in the clinic.

    During my time off, I had more time to read, and given my personal and professional interest in holistic health, those are the topics I like to explore in my free time. In particular, I started to look into the perspectives from people associated in my mind, with the “anti-vax” movement. For the most part, they all seem to reject the label “anti-vax” for themselves, often claiming that they are supportive of safe and effective vaccines. In medical school, even in residency when I was the doctor ordering the shots at the well child checks, we learned to follow the CDC guidelines. That was the curriculum, and that was what we did. I learned that there is no maximum to the number of shots that can be given during 1 visit. If the patient is behind on their routine schedule, we can give 6 doses in one day to help get back on track.

    I am aware that most of my former classmates, and most of the current medical staff have little tolerance or interest in “anti-vax” perspectives. I recognize in myself, that it would be difficult to suspend my judgement long enough to understand their arguments and claims while I was also working in a clinic and routinely recommending the shots. So during my break, I had mental bandwidth to sit through and consider the perspectives presented in a 9 (!) part documentary series entitled ominously : “The Truth about Vaccines”. Ty and Charlene Bollinger co-hosted the dateline-esque series of interviews with a number of figures who pieced together, as best I could tell, the case against vaccines.

    I’m not able to boil it down to a damning sentence. Even this whole essay might not convince you. I wasn’t sold after watching the series, but I had a sense of who the figures in the community were. Paul Thomas and Robert Kennedy Jr. were two of the figures who appeared more credible, but in general I was intrigued that most of the speakers appeared sincere and with a story to tell, and not desperate or overly emotional, the way their arguments get reduced down in memes on social media.

    So here I am, working at a community clinic as a family physician during the pandemic, with the decision on whether I personally would like to take the vaccine when it is available to clinic staff. Initially, I was quite uncertain. I listen to my peers, I listen to the news, I listen to Dr. Fauci, I listen to updates from doctors at the hospital and I hear a promising message of a safe and effective vaccine. I understand that our clinic would like to build trust with our community so they too will be ready to get vaccinated, and they would be glad to have staff like me, demonstrate that we are willing to receive the shot.

    Also, I know where to find those alternative perspectives, the ones who never seem to end up on the evening news or in the conversations with medical professionals. My job now is to integrate the information, all the information that I can process, and come to a decision for myself. And given what I know, for now, my answer is that I am not ready to receive the vaccination.

    I will continue writing. I have a lot more to say. I am nervous about putting these thoughts out to the Facebook community, but I know that I eventually do want to address a wider audience. I am open to conversations, and I recommend you do plenty of research before making this decision for yourself. I wish I could say that your doctor or health provider is a good source of information, but in my view, I strongly suspect that they are likely not familiar or articulate in the case against the vaccine. I apologize if this feels like I’m leaving you hanging, but that’s all for now. Be well everyone!

    I am a physician, and I am not planning to receive the COVID-19 vaccination. I have more questions than I think will be answered by the time it is offered to me. I won’t rule out the possibility that I might change my mind as more information becomes available, but it feels both vulnerable and important to share my views. I think conversations on this topic are needed, and I hope that my writing contributes to healthy communications.

    My first question is whether the term “vaccine” is the right one for this injectable therapy. In my experience, when a vaccine is administered, it contains the antigenic component to which the immune system is sensitized. With this new mRNA technology, the antigen isn’t created until our own cells build the spike protein from the synthesized gene. I think a more accurate description than “vaccine” would be “gene therapy”.

    The metaphor that comes to mind, is that of Roundup-ready wheat. We have genetically modified those organisms with a gene that protects them from the poison glyphosate. Then, farmers can spray their fields with the roundup which kills all the plant life except for the genetically altered product which is grown as a commodity. I’m not saying the mRNA is inserted from the injection into our genome, just that it was synthesized and now involved in our cellular machinery. Still, I can hear the critics now, who believe that without our level of production of these commodities, that an opponent of Roundup must be against farmers and that the result of these dreams must surely worsen world hunger. Not so, I say. To bring the analogy back, I want patients to be defended from the Coronavirus with adequate vitamin D levels, with exercise and good sleep, stress management, and healthy relationships. I don’t want to ignore or minimize the growing death count from the Coronavirus. But I don’t think the new vaccine is the only option for defense.

    Back in the metaphorical territory, I believe, optimistically, in the opportunity of regenerative agriculture. There is a lot of hard work involved in raising crops in a way that nourishes both the land and our bodies, and the path forward I see involves a lot more of it done by a new generation who realizes that we need to get off the doomsday path we are on with fossil fuel use and environmental exploitation and degradation.

    There is more to say about the new “vaccine”. As a millennial doc, who finished medical school in 2016, I am plugged into the Facebook network, and I see proud selfies of so many of my former classmates and colleagues who are doing what they think is right to promote the public image of this product that is sold as “safe and effective.” I wonder how they know? Do they accept Pfizer’s and Moderna’s study results as presented? Do they simply trust Anthony Fauci or their professors and peers?

    When I look at the study, I see the heralded results of course. But I also notice that the study group was only monitored for 2 months. The tool they used to measure the difference in their treatment and placebo arms was the PCR test, which has its own limitations worth serious consideration. For now, I am just interested to know, what is the risk of autoimmune conditions down the road? Not 2 months down the road, but 2 years? Because remember, our immune system isn’t targeting the antigenic protein that is injected, it is targeting a protein that was created by our own cells. How does this protein get out of the cell? Does it not get tagged with any MHC “self” markers? Can we be sure that both the mRNA and the protein break down or are eliminated from the body after the injection? How long do those myocytes live with the active mRNA producing spike proteins?

    In another essay, I could talk about why so few physicians would speak out about the vaccine. I could talk about the ones who do and why they are so marginalized. For now, I’ll come back to the Roundup metaphor. Consuming those products won’t kill you. Some integrative doctors might talk about how glyphosate affects the gut lining and so on, but it’s not imminently dangerous to ingest their products. And, in my perspective, I don’t think it is a good idea. Which is where I land on the vaccine as well. I want to support the young people doing the hard work of biodynamic farming, or regenerative agriculture, aiming in the direction of a sustainable and thriving planet. I don’t think the Pfizer/Moderna product applied to 7.8 billion human bodies is a wise approach to the challenges we face.

Write something that takes a clear stand for something that you hold as sacred in the world that is getting threatened right now.

I’m going to decline the COVID vaccine when it is offered to me.

I am honoring my intuition, and not abandoning it to please others.

This is tied to a wound where in the past I wasn’t yet ready to make such a stand.

If this decision opens the door to my exit from conventional medicine, I welcome that opportunity.

My greatest hope, is that my courage reverberates to others, in a way that matters.

My greatest fear, is that I am not only wrong, but wrongheaded and making matters worse for everyone.

What’s true, is that I don’t have enough information to be certain. What’s also true, is that I am doing the best I can with the information I have.

I just had a very nice day. I toured applicants around the hospital this morning and that was no problem, and I was struck by 2 things. One, that one of the applicants asked about wellness and commented about how a lot of her classmates (not her, she was sure to say) were feeling burnt out even as they finished medical school and were anticipating residency. Well, okay. I guess I’m not surprised, but I’m also struck by the fact that these folks are headed for a lousy time in residency. And the 2^nd came from one of the 2^nd year residents, one who I had had a high opinion of. They had worked for an HIV clinic for years before starting down the medical route and I had heard them previously describe wanting a blend of inpatient and outpatient at a teaching hospital for a long career. Well, that seems to have changed, at least for today. Today, they were telling the applicants that they would not go back and do this route again. Not with what they know now. They’d be a barista at Caribou Coffee or whatever. Okay. These are like those cruel jokes that have so much truth that it’s just sad. Is it just complaining? I complain plenty.

But I really don’t complain all too much to my colleagues. At work, if anything I mostly buoy them up. I recognized that quite clearly this Monday morning when I was set to work with one of my favorite faculty and she came in with a “punky” mood. I apologized for her. I sympathized with her. I tried to be as easy to work with as I could. I’m not sure how much I helped, but what I took away is that even she, who has a very righteous purpose about practicing family medicine is feeling it too.

So that leads me to another story. One of being in routine clinic. And it was just a good day. I saw 6-7 patients, a very normal day, but I had such a good attitude about it. That, I’m not sure its cause (??) But the effect was tremendous. I went into each room with good intention and connected so easily with my patients. I focused in on the problem they came in with, that I either could or couldn’t solve and I communicated as best I could either with or without an interpreter as needed. I educated. I prescribed some, but other times not at all. I filled out forms. It was normal stuff, but I just had this unique feeling that “I can help a lot of people in this job.” And it feels like a commonplace thing to say, but it was an epiphany. Because I, at times, am stuck in such a negative, doubting place, that I really am not able to provide that. My patient’s show up and they expect a miracle pill for their problems and I don’t have it.

And so what’s really important about this insight is that there is a difference between doing a “good” job for my patients, and not doing it. It is not a difference that my employer can tell. It’s not a difference that the insurance payers can tell. For so many doctors, we get run down into the mode where we are just playing the game, filling out the paperwork, and it hardly matters. But it does matter to patients. And it feels good to do a good job. So if I am able to provide this kind of service, than I think this job could be sustainable. And for me, in order to feel good and feel like I can do a good job, I need to see way fewer patients.

I have determined a “dream schedule” for me. It would be: Monday afternoon, Tuesday am/pm, and Thursday afternoon. That’s it. It’s half time. 2 days a week that I do in 3. I start slow on Monday so it’s less intimidating. I have my big “full day” on Tuesday. And then I have Wednesday off to get all those charts done. And then I have another little peak of work and that’s it. The key is that I can do a good job for my patients when I am in, and I can do this for a very long time. A lot of family medicine doctors earn 180-220k. I might earn 80k. I don’t know. But that might be okay if I have such a nice lifestyle. I can work more if I someday have kids or something. But after residency, this kind of schedule makes sense to me.

A little more on “good work.” It’s about presence. It’s about waking up to what’s really going on and doing the best for our patients. Unfortunately, this is very hard to see for the majority of providers and they are stuck asleep. It is hard to wake up when your coping mechanisms, your salary depend on you being asleep. The financial drivers run the show and folks are chasing after those RVUs at the expense of quality patient care. Well, that’s the story that demonizes doctors anyways. It’s complicated.