I am a pretty ‘chill’ person. I respect personal choice and freedom. As an intensive care physician, during a global pandemic, I have witnessed suffering and death on a level that I could not have imagined. When the COVID vaccine was approved (albeit EUA), in late 2020, we rushed in droves, to get the ‘the jab’. I was flabbergasted and appalled by the politicization if vaccines.
I will recount an encounter with a patient and his spouse that hurt me more than I care to admit.
Me: did you get your COVID vaccine?
Spouse: Oh NO….!
Me: Why not?
Spouse: We have a religious exemption.
Me: If I may, I would like to discuss this with you?
Spouse: ‘eyeroll’ ummmm …sure….
I went on to counsel them about the misconception about fetal cells in mRNA vaccines. I even informed them that ‘the ‘POPE’ had been vaccinated.
Spouse: Another eyeroll, ‘maybe’…
Me: So, you don’t believe the Pope got vaxed?
This led to many tangents, ‘we have done our research’, ‘ so may deaths from the vaccine’, ‘ so many side-effects’, ‘experimental’, ‘unproven’…. And on and on.
It was easy for me to dispel their objections. I googled death rate and side effects using credible sources right in the office. How can one argue with Dr Google?
Spouse: ‘Why are ‘they’ forcing this experimental inoculation on us?’
Me: But they didn’t mandate anything for 5 months, they even entered everyone in a 1-million-dollar lottery!
Spouse: They are killing people with the ventilators making up COVID deaths on the death certificates.
Me: So, you are saying that I have been willfully killing people and then falsifying their death certificates for the last 18 months?
Spouse: Oh, I am so sorry, I never meant you!
Me: Then who do you mean? Who is killing patients and fraudulently filling out death certificates?
Spouse: I didn’t mean to offend you!
Me: But do you see why I AM offended!? It is ME and MY COLLEAGUES who puts patient on ventilators and fills out death certificates!
Spouse: I am sorry you feel that way.
Me: But how else should I feel when you tell me I am a fraud committing murderer?
And that was it for me! It was time to end this encounter. I thanked them both for listening to me and asked them to reconsider their decision based on our conversation.
(Published in Pulse on 9/22/21)
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