- Buckle up folks.
This is gonna be a rough one.
I've never gotten to as many Twitter arguments
as I have in the last week.
I cannot believe what's going on.
There is hypocrisy, there's inaccuracy,
degrading information
from respected journalists and physicians.
But I think we should start with President Trump
being diagnosed and dealing with COVID-19.
The way I actually found out
about President Trump's diagnosis was
that I was woken up three or four or even five times
in the middle of the night by TV producers and stations
asking me to come on to talk about the president's health.
But when I investigated further,
the only thing we knew at that moment was
that president Trump tweeted that he tested positive
for COVID-19 along with the First Lady.
Here's the problem with going on television
without any information, you're bound to speculate.
And when you're speculating,
you're practicing what's known as tabloid medicine.
This is a very inaccurate and unethical way
to talk about health.
You're really speculating about a patient's health,
who is not your patient
and someone who hasn't given you explicit permission
to talk about their health.
So not only are you doing something unethical,
it's also gonna be inaccurate 'cause you're guessing
and I did not wanna be guessing
so I turned down those opportunities,
even though I love talking about COVID-19
and putting accurate information out there.
To my dismay, I saw conversations the next day
in the media that went as such.
- Dr. Batocera what do you see in that video?
Does that give us any sense of the president's condition
or does he look okay?
Some people thought he looked a little pale.
- Something that also upset me that day
was seeing med Twitter
for my fellow physician colleagues explode
with negative commentary,
wishing that Trump passes from COVID-19,
wishing harm or demise to him,
which goes against every medical rule in the book.
When we took our oath,
it was to first do no harm and provide the best care
to every patient, irrespective
to geography, race, criminal status, political biases.
So to see doctors say
that some patients shouldn't get better is just awful.
I was incredibly proud of Vice President Joe Biden
coming out and saying that he wishes President Trump
a speedy recovery,
that they don't wanna bad mouth him in this given moment.
That is the right thing to do.
And I believe my fellow physician colleagues
should be leading the way in that charge.
Now let's move on and talk about what's going on
from Trump's organization standpoint,
the way that they're handling COVID-related messaging
and the messaging about president Trump's health.
Honestly, it's horrible.
It's impossible to know whether they're telling the truth,
if they're simply confused, if they're getting facts wrong.
I've actually seen president Trump's personal doctor
come out and make questionable statements
where I can't even follow the story.
Did he get oxygen?
Did he not get oxygen?
What were the medications that he was given?
When were the medications given?
The timeline is all over the place
and it's difficult to tell what's what.
This list of all the medications and supplements
that President Trump has received make no sense to me
from a scientific standpoint.
Many of these treatments are under
an emergency use authorization
where it should be reserved for those who are most ill.
Those who have no alternative means of getting better,
because they're not proven.
They haven't been FDA approved.
And yet president Trump got all of them.
Either the president was more ill than they let on,
or the president was getting
a lot of treatments prematurely.
And this point is what really gets me the most upset.
It really functions as the worst example
of how media has become more gossip than journalism,
where you're valuing popularity on Twitter,
over journalistic integrity and accuracy.
And I'm specifically talking about the negative labeling
of the president's personal physician,
being a doctor of osteopathic medicine, a DO.
Folks, there are two types of practicing physicians here
in the United States, MDs and DOs.
They both go through four years of medical school.
They then go into a residency program
where they become specialized in their training.
In fact, now that the residency programs have merged,
DOs and MDs train side by side.
They oftentimes take the exact same board exams,
the same licensing exams in order to practice medicine.
The fact that we have some journalists tweeting
that the president's doctor is bad or wrong
or a worse doctor because of his degree is shameful
and horribly inaccurate.
The one that I took exception to the most was
by a screenwriter by the name of Eric Haywood.
"Look, I'm sure, checks notes,
"doctor of osteopathic medicine is a fine achievement
"and Dr. Conley had to study super hard
"to earn his, uh, certificate, degree.
"I don't know, man, whatever."
"Your little president is being treated
"by someone a couple notches higher than an acupuncturist.
"Sorry to this country."
What?
As an individual who frequently advocates
to have decreased discrimination
and stereotyping in this nation,
you are doing just that, sir.
And on top of it,
you're mad at Trump's administration
for spreading potential misinformation.
You are doing just that!
DOs are just as equally licensed to practice medicine here
in the United States and in 50 countries abroad.
In fact, there's over 120,000 practicing DOs out there,
and God forbid you end up in an emergency room
or in a trauma situation.
I'm sure you're not gonna be checking
if there's a DO or MD saving your life.
You're gonna trust that this doctor, whoever they may be,
will be acting in good conscience
to save your life despite your nasty comments above.
And I have to give a huge thank you to my MD colleagues
who jumped at the defense
of doctors of osteopathic medicine.
Those who tweeted in support,
explaining that we work side by side,
many times not knowing who's an MD and who's a DO.
Before I used to think that these types of tweets
were largely coming from institutions
that perhaps didn't have the highest journalistic integrity.
And then I saw a tweet by Ryan Lizza,
the chief Washington correspondent from Politico
and a senior political analyst at CNN.
"D.O. Twitter,"
which by the way, is med Twitter
because Dos and MDs are both doctors.
"Is mad at me for pointing out
"that Conley is not an MD,
"but they are clearly not sending their best!"
I don't know what journalist who works
for these legitimate companies has the gall
in the midst of a pandemic where over 120,000 doctors
are acting as frontline healthcare workers
to say that we're not sending our best.
Osteopathic physicians died
while you write articles at home.
How dare you attack these doctors?
These are women and men putting their lives
on the front lines.
If a nurse said something you didn't like,
would you say nurses aren't sending their best?
The fact that you feel comfortable putting this out there
and not deleting it after you get negative feedback for it
speaks volumes about the lack of caring you put
in the accuracy of your tweets.
We should not be judging doctors
based on the letters after their name,
but instead judging them by their bedside manner,
their ability to heal patients,
their ability to fight misinformation
and their ability to connect to other humans.
And a little fun fact for Ryan here,
Vice President Biden's personal physician is also a DO.
So clearly we are sending our best
or is it only our best when it suits you?
Here's Christina Farr's tweet.
"I'm disturbed that anyone,
"let alone 13% of Americans,
"say the most important way they get their news is YouTube.
"No wonder belief in conspiracy theories is so prevalent."
I had a lot of problems with this so I responded.
"Not only do major news organizations post a ton of content
"on YouTube, but so do legitimate medical sources
"like the CDC, WHO, and individual doctors
"like MamaDoctorJones, Medlife Crisis, & myself.
"I would also venture to say that mainstream media
"has done less than an ideal job covering COVID-19 anyway."
The reason I say this is
because I have several videos, fact checking the media
in their coverage of COVID-19.
"I'm not saying there isn't good info on YouTube.
"I'd instead suggest that it's highly variable
"and often times can be extreme and polarizing in nature.
"Information gleaned from traditional news outlets
"is not the same.
"There are checks and balances,
"as well as editorial oversight."
I don't understand because if I watch CNN and Fox news,
it looks like I'm living in two different countries.
The points of views don't align at all.
So there's a huge variability even on television.
Mainstream media has taken this extremist approach
where you don't know what you're getting,
and there's huge variability in mainstream media as well.
So to critique people getting their information
on YouTube is unfair.
When we see how much journalistic integrity
has been degraded in this country,
I think it's fair that certain will trust MamaDoctorJones
before they trust One America News.
We should not judge people for that.
I think President Trump certainly acted inappropriately
when he decided to take a cruise in his armored SUV
in the midst of his stay in the hospital.
We have enough difficulties keeping patients safe
and staff safe when it comes to COVID-19.
Making these unnecessary motions
just put a lot of lives at risk.
But at the same time, I strongly disagree.
Vehemently disagree, if you will, with tweets like this.
"Congress might want to defund Walter Reed.
"It is a public health hazard."
This is written by an MSNBC contributor
and Washington Post columnist,
trying to encourage defunding of a veteran's hospital
because she didn't like
how they handled the President Trump situation.
Our anger towards our political foes
has gone so far that we're willing
to let people lose their lives
because we disagree with them.
When did the disagreement become this bad
that you're willing to allow bystanders
to get hurt in this process.
To hurt veterans
because you don't like the way something was handled.
There's better ways to speak up
and I think the only thing these messages do
is improve Twitter followings and like counts
'cause they're so extremist.
You're not bringing people together.
You're not improving the world.
This type of rhetoric should be shut down
and I'm not saying shut down by Twitter,
it should be shut down by you and I.
In the midst of filming this video,
President Trump actually put out a message saying
that we shouldn't be afraid of COVID-19, that he dominated.
We're all gonna beat it.
Well, President Trump, if we're being honest here
over 200,000 Americans have lost their lives to it,
who didn't beat it.
So to downplay like this is inaccurate and unfair.
There are things we can empower ourselves with.
We should be alert up to date as best as we can be
so we can make it the best decisions
for ourselves and our families.
It's pretty incredible,
but the stay alert, not anxious mantra
has really held up from day one of this pandemic,
but the message of don't be afraid,
we'll all beat it and we'll all dominate is not true.
Many people will continue to lose their lives.
So we need to be smart.
We need to wear masks.
We need to socially distance.
The fall season is upon us and things can get really bad
if there is a second wave.
We're more prepared than we were before.
We are actually making major adjustments
in our medical institutions
in terms of treatments, care, additional units,
staffing, personal protective equipment.
So we are gonna fare better than we did
in the beginning of this pandemic.
But that doesn't mean that it's a joke
and we shouldn't take it seriously.
The 1 million death mark recently was just passed
with COVID-19 worldwide.
That's a somber reminder of how serious this virus is.
And the last thing I urge everyone at home to do
is get your flu shots
because when there's already tremendous pressure
on the hospitals,
we wanna make sure as few people as possible
are getting sick with flu, especially
because we have a vaccine that is safe,
that almost everyone universally should be getting.
In fact, I just got mine the other day
and I'm gonna highlight it
for you on one of my hospital blog videos.
But for now I want you to check out my other day
in the life video here in the hospital
as an osteopathic physician,
or check out me debunking more myths about COVID-19 here.
As always stay happy and healthy.
(upbeat music)