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i-was-called-out-by-medical-tiktok

I Was Called Out By Medical TikTok

this is a topic I've been meaning to address for a long period of time but I had an isolated incident happen to me on Tick Tock that I think is very emblematic of what's happening on social media specifically within the healthcare or medical community that I find to be very very problematic and I want to say on the outside of this video this is not intended to attack anybody there's going to be a reason why we cut out everyone's names out of the video their usernames because the purpose of this is to get the medical community on the same page to make sure that we improve our communication style myself included and learn from situations just like this one in order to facilitate the message of greater good or Public Health a month ago I posted a short a cut down of my interview with Sebastian Maniscalco on the topic of RSV right now with RSV one of the leading theories of why there's such a run on hospitals is because generally kids get RSV in their first three years of life there's like a 50 chance each year that they get their first episode and their first episode with RSV is usually the worst the time that where they need breathing treatments maybe ICU stay and we've held our kids back from school grandparents and everybody that could have gotten them sick for the last two years so now the children that would have gotten it each year have all gotten it at the same time and it was their first time so it kind of creates a run on hospitals that's the leading theory RSV is a respiratory virus that actually affects people of all ages but it happens to be worse in the very young and the elderly what's been going on in our communities is that we've seen higher rates of hospitalization for children with RSV over the last season which means basically starting late October November and we had some theories circulating as to why that was going on I presented one of the leading theories and I specify one of the leading theories very strongly here because I largely believe as a physician myself who treats children that this is a multifactorial situation meaning that there's probably multiple factors and multiple theories that are to be true and each of them have holes because they do not on their own explain the given spike in RSV hospitalizations the theory of covid co-infection fluid co-infection and immune dysregulation partially true the fact that the timing has been thrown off and our seasonal patterns have been thrown off the fact that pregnant patients weren't exposed to RSV while pregnant therefore transfer less protection for newborns partially true the one that I presented spoke to the fact that children over the last two years or so had less exposure to RSV because we were protecting them from covid we were not having normal activities normal interactions their siblings were not going to school their parents were not going to work and as a result they had less exposure to RSV when you have less exposure um you're less likely to get RSV and children who get RSV for the first time usually get a worse case of RSV I wasn't saying anything about children's immune systems I wasn't saying anything about our mitigation methods for covid I was simply saying that because they had less exposure to RSV that more children were exposed to RSV this season as we're going back to regular life and as a result more of them were getting it for the first time which means more severe cases so it's basically just a timing issue nothing to do with the strength or or weakness of their immune systems in fact this theory about the timing being thrown off was not my theory it happens to be one of the leading theories that was spoken in news by New York Presbyterian Hospital it was on ABC News doctors on NPR talked about this Dr mcgear from University of Toronto said it perfectly in this interview there's no question my mind that the biggest impact of this this you know excess in in illness in kids and in our icus is related to the fact that kids just weren't exposed to RSV after posting this Tick Tock I got comments from other doctors who were debating uh the validity of this Theory whether this is the theory that explains the recent spike in RSV and some of their arguments were right I actually agreed with their arguments they were saying that in Sweden they did not have a strict of a lockdown and yet they're still having this Spike why is that the case and I'm not an expert on Sweden by the way I I don't know exactly what their Health Care system is like so I don't even pretend to know that one of the theories going around right now is about covet immune system dysregulation that some doctors believe that all these children that have had covet in the past have a weakened immune system therefore as a result RSV affects them more there may be some truth in this because any co-infection whether we're talking about covid flu rhinovirus these types of co-infections can make your immune system have fluctuations in its ability to fight other viruses so that that's partially true true there's some even data showing that some immune cells are impacted by having coveted in the past the concept of immunity debt has popped up among certain circles where they believe having children protected from exposure has led them to have a weakened immune system and this is not what I was saying this is not how immune systems work yes there is a hygiene theory that long-term chronically over the course of Our Lives if we hyper protect ourselves from bacteria and constantly disinfect everything it could have a meaningful impact of our lives but over the course of one or two years protecting children from a serious situation like covet that initially we knew very little about and then we learned more and it was very scary and our Hospital systems are overwhelmed will not impact their immune system so much so that they're weakened that is not what I was saying and anyone pushing that is inaccurate to my disappointment this past week I started seeing an increase of attacks from other medical professionals on this Tick Tock that I did not expect because I totally see how we can debate what is the reason for this RSV Spike but I started seeing personal attacks in fact there was one comment that upset me because the person came in and said wow you pretend to be a so-called doctor in quotes here's an immunologist's perspective and it was like a personal attack on me as if I'm not a real doctor treating patients when I have RSV patients I have coveted patients I give guidance I strive to be the best doctor that I can I've tried to be an accurate voice with evidence-based medicine throughout the pandemic and to have this doctor do a personal attack on me to upset me so I block them in fact that was one of my New Year's resolutions to try and not pay attention to the negative comments as much that I don't feel are reflective of who I am as a person and block and move on but when I blocked said person they created content around the fact that I blocked them as if I was silencing their medical voice that I am a medical grifter that I am the same as Dr Oz and fueling misinformation which is so disheartening because the whole reason this YouTube channel exists is to put out evidence-based medicine so to be accused of spreading it myself just just kills me because it doesn't make a lot of sense to me why are people doing this some of the negative comments pointed out that I was blocking and deleting comments from people who disagreed with this theory that I was presenting and that's not the case I believe in healthy discourse and debate we need more of it it just needs to stay respectful because the only reason I blocked the individual I mentioned earlier was they started personally attacking me in life if you ever want to have a meaningful conversation or even a debate with someone you can't start it off by saying so you're a so-called doctor or call them a name and hope that they're going to listen these same people who say these things about me and attack me also have been attacked themselves and know what it feels like so we have to approach this empathetically we need to do a better job in social media when it comes to healthcare communication these are still sort of hurdles that we need to get across as communicators when it comes to a public health setting and I think it's really important that we move away from toxicity within the medical community because otherwise what happens is it fractures our ability to educate people we we fuel tribalism we we lead people more confused and educated they feel like this person knows the answer and this person's evil this person's bad and this type of dichotomy this black or white thinking is unhealthy because medicine is not a hundred percent science there is an R to it there are individual distinctions that need to be made per patient that's why generalized medicine is not the same as what is accurate for the person sitting in front of you so please doctors online I know that we've been attacked throughout the last few years for putting out accurate information we have seen arise a tremendous rise in misinformation but do not lead this to create displacement anger on other Physicians or other individuals or even your patients who may say things that you disagree with you may find slightly inaccurate because the more we attack and the more we label everything is misinformation the more it takes away our ability to be true fact Checkers and educators I'm actually such a fan of healthy debate I love it when people tell me that I'm wrong and have a meaningful discussion with me you've told me I've been wrong several times and here's a full video with all the mistakes that I've made in my videos over the last few years I hope you enjoy it and I hope as always you stay happy and healthy

Dr.

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