What an excellent idea, advising someone in healthcare to leave a field that desperately needs its experienced workers to stay.
They don't need people like that. Every day you have to deal with people who make bad decisions that cause them harm. If you aren't capable of dealing with that fact without it erasing all empathy you have for patients, it's time to seek out different employment. You just don't have what it takes. Every single day, you'll encounter tubby bastards that are only there because their love for fatty cakes was more than their affection for their lives or limbs. You'll encounter alcoholics that killed their liver despite warnings for decades. Most people cause their own health problems by being idiots. It's not something new, and it's not something that will change. If you can't handle that, go be an accountant or something.
Nah I still love my job and am too invested in hoping to stabilize the clinical problem. It’s just the empathy isn’t as high as it used to be. It’s different when you see a cirrhotic or COPDer because they’re vice of choice is mainly harming them. In the middle of a pandemic where people have options to prevent getting sick and to prevent others from getting sick and to not use up resources if they don’t have to, that’s when the empathy goes out the door. Couple that with unreasonable families who want everything done despite not taking the steps to prevent it in the first place, has led to pretty high burnout.
But again, it doesn’t prevent you from getting COVID so now you’re dealing with both? That’s why I say it should be a decision with you and your physician. It certainly makes more sense for someone nearer end of life to be more concerned about the virus as opposed to side effects that may effect you 10-20-30 years down the road. When the mortality rate is 0.00571% for ages under 29 in the US, then I think at minimum you should be afforded the choice to make a decision on what is the best choice for you. If I’m a professional athlete who’s considered to be in peak physical condition, I’m not so sure I’m first in-line or happy about being forced to do so.
Thinking too surface level bro. In a vacuum I’d agree with you. The chances of dying are lower with younger populations. But you don’t know if you’re going to be that lucky one to survive it. I’ve coded way too many late twenties to early forty year olds that weren’t protected. but it’s not just dying from covid. What if you had permanent lung disease that left you on chronic oxygen and likely needing transplant in the future? We’re seeing more and more that in our clinic. We have no clue if that damage is permanent or not. We actually had conference today about listing a guy for transplant in his early 50s after he got covid and had significant permanent lung disease. And then the truly big issue is stressing the hospital system. The hospital has supply chain issues from bed availability to staff availability to nurse availability to meds availability to vent abailbility. Covid patients don’t just die. They usually stay on the vent for weeks. Safe ICU practices limit one physician to around 20 IcU patients. If all 20 patients are no covids without any way of getting out of the icu, god help you if you develop cancer, or an accident, or a severe infection that wasn’t your fault in the first place. Anecdotally in the past months I’ve had several late twenty years olds almost die because I couldn’t get them transferred to centers with specialized surgeons because they had no bed space. Essentially I was told they were going to bleed out and I just had to cross my fingers and hope for the best for them.
I can see arguing to not get the vaccine if you had already had COVID and you are someone who is scared of super rare side effects......but other than that, it's kind of ridiculous. It's free, it's relatively safe as far as we know, and it's a hell of a lot better than getting COVID if you happen to be one of the statistical outliers. I agree that people deserve the right to make their own choices in a scenario where the case mortality rate is so incredibly low, but you have to understand that cowardice pretty much runs society these days. Cowardice and liberty are and have always been enemies. At least they aren't branding people for refusing the vaccine and throwing them in camps yet.
The problem with your line of thinking is that some people are not capable of making the best decisions for themselves. We actually know who they are because they're incapable of understanding basic expected value (the expected value of taking a vaccine is mathematically positive if the mortality rate is higher than 0 in the general population, which means you should always take it when given a choice). If a person is unable to make the logically correct decision, and their decision infringes on other's natural rights, should their individual rights be protected at the expense of the group? The answer, even in cultures with individualistic ideologies, has historically been no.
USA is trending to NOT reach the necessary herd immunity to de-escalate this pandemic. We have a greater responsibility to society to vaccinate, like our grandparents generation did to practically eliminate illnesses that used to ravage the world.
I understand your perspective. It is different than mine no doubt, as I would expect it to be. You see it differently. You will always see the very worst case scenario in what you do. I appreciate your efforts on the front lines. Stay well my friend!
Has it not been de-escalated already? Unless you're especially unhealthy or old, life is pretty much back to normal in most places. Also, it's weird to compare legitimately dangerous diseases like polio to something like Covid that has a microscopic infection fatality rate.
I appreciate that. No one takes that into consideration. Most just force the vaccine on you. No one asks or cares that I have had it. And you my friend have proved my point. Liberties we give up today are liberties our kids will never know existed, never experience. Having had COVID, I’ll keep my Liberty. Freedoms always have come with costs. And they will continue to do so.
Do you have older people in your life that you care about? I'm young and healthy, and if I got covid I would almost definitely be fine. I'm not afraid of it. But I've also seen people my age get it, pass it to a parent, recover quickly with mild symptoms, and then have the parent end up in the hospital or dead. I got the vaccine to protect my mom, my older coworkers, and anyone else around me who isn't as fortunate to be as healthy and young as I am.
I do. My parents and in-laws. They all have gotten the vaccine, as I would most likely as well if I were their age. I have supported them and their decision. I stress it’s what’s best for you according to how you feel along with your physicians recommendation. However, I will reiterate, the vaccine does not stop you from getting COVID nor from infecting others after you contract it. IF it was that effective, like the polio vaccine, I may have a different view, still knowing the unknowns around long term effects.
I see it alot in NY. During the Pandemic I actually invited alot of the healthcare workers to eat at my restaurant. Fed them and thanked them. It isn't just medical workers that have lost empathy to the unvaccinated. At this point just put those Covid related issues in camps. If the camps run out of beds for them tough luck.
You made this up. Spreading anti-vox misinformation should be reason enough for a perma-ban, but a simple ignore list will have to do.
