![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ermingardenA very close, decades-long friend who has been a professional colleague — we are both family-practice doctors, though we currently work in different states — is spreading misinformation when it comes to Covid-19. She thinks vaccines have toxic ingredients and are unnecessary. She also thinks that the case and death rates of Covid are overblown. Recently, she emailed that she has been prescribing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for use against Covid.
As bad as I think her misinformation is, I feel that she has crossed the line in prescribing drugs that multiple studies have shown are not effective for the prevention or treatment of Covid-19. Professional standards state that I must report her to the state board of medicine, just as I must report a colleague who was abusing drugs or alcohol. On the advice of a former medical-school classmate who is a bioethicist, I wrote to my friend stating that she could lose her board certification and her state medical license.
As might be expected, she is not vaccinated and has no plans for her or her family to be vaccinated. Obviously, I will not change her mind. As bad as I think her advice is for herself and her family, though, it is wrong and harmful when it comes to patients in her care. So what do I do? –Name Withheld
There are over a million active physicians in the United States — more than the entire population of Austin, Texas. Even if a vast majority respect the practice guidelines set by their medical boards, there will be those whose training proves no match for the misinformation that incubates online, and their absolute numbers will not be insignificant. Sometimes ideological identities can undercut professional ones. When doctors reasonably believe that a member of their profession is endangering patients, they should pass what they know on to the medical authorities in the states where they work. Alas, you have good grounds for such concern. That she’s your friend made it appropriate to tell her first that you thought she was exposing herself to risk for violating the strictures of her profession. At this point, though, your obligations as a medical professional are the overriding ones. The sort of misinformation she’s both purveying and putting into practice is among the reasons that this pandemic’s costs in sickness and death have been so great.
As bad as I think her misinformation is, I feel that she has crossed the line in prescribing drugs that multiple studies have shown are not effective for the prevention or treatment of Covid-19. Professional standards state that I must report her to the state board of medicine, just as I must report a colleague who was abusing drugs or alcohol. On the advice of a former medical-school classmate who is a bioethicist, I wrote to my friend stating that she could lose her board certification and her state medical license.
As might be expected, she is not vaccinated and has no plans for her or her family to be vaccinated. Obviously, I will not change her mind. As bad as I think her advice is for herself and her family, though, it is wrong and harmful when it comes to patients in her care. So what do I do? –Name Withheld
There are over a million active physicians in the United States — more than the entire population of Austin, Texas. Even if a vast majority respect the practice guidelines set by their medical boards, there will be those whose training proves no match for the misinformation that incubates online, and their absolute numbers will not be insignificant. Sometimes ideological identities can undercut professional ones. When doctors reasonably believe that a member of their profession is endangering patients, they should pass what they know on to the medical authorities in the states where they work. Alas, you have good grounds for such concern. That she’s your friend made it appropriate to tell her first that you thought she was exposing herself to risk for violating the strictures of her profession. At this point, though, your obligations as a medical professional are the overriding ones. The sort of misinformation she’s both purveying and putting into practice is among the reasons that this pandemic’s costs in sickness and death have been so great.
