One of the reasons for my rotten day in clinic yesterday: An antivaxxer.
Now, all antivaxxers are full of crap. But I think this one was going for a crap-capacity world record.
New patient, primary care provider hunting. She said she had a hard time keeping a PCP, and now I know why. I didn't even bring up the subject of immunization; she did that on her own, coming out swinging, saying what she will and won't do for health maintenance. Parentheses are what I thought; italics are what I actually said.
"I don't do vaccines or immunizations or anything like that."
("Then why are you here, wasting your time and mine?" )
"I know there is a lot of misinformation about vaccines out there. I'll be happy to address your concerns."
"I saw this YouTube video with this guy from the CIA. At least, he said he was from the CIA. He says there are molecules in the COVID-19 vaccine. Do you know what molecules are?"
("Yes, because I stayed awake in fourth-grade science class!" )
"Yes, I know what molecules are."
"Well he said that the molecules in the COVID vaccine give you HIV."
("This is the stupidest shit I've ever heard in my life!" )
"Did he have any training in virology or immunology?"
"Umm..."
("That's what I thought." )
"The Journal of the AMA, the British Medical Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of the AAPA all say the vaccines are safe, and - "
"I'M NOT GOING TO BE PRESSURED INTO THIS! What was your name again? I'm going to report you!"
I gave her my card, because all she is going to get from Admin about a provider with my experience is: 'We're sorry this happened. We'll look into it." She'll never hear from them again, and she can go back to looking for a quack who will agree with her bullshit.
These situations are so disheartening.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Boy oh boy, NEVER AGAIN!
("Yes, because I stayed awake in fourth-grade science class!" )
When you're down to your last 2 weeks before retiring - you'll get yet another patient like this.
You will then have some really fine 'options' - and you won't even have to just 'think' them!
First off, you will have NO reason to hold back on the very same phrases you 'thought' - what the hell, SAY THEM!!!!
Others could include:
1. "I'm sorry - this is not where you would go for a 'psyc. eval.'"
2. "You're NUTS! Get out of here!"
3. Or, if you're STILL willing to be calm, polite, and wanting to 'deliver' your message: "I think you would be happier being tended to by someone that doesn't know a damned thing about medicine and would be quite willing to take your money."
But, in the meantime - be cool - continue to help those that want and need your help - and know that you are doing a wonderful thing for society!
I’m looking forward to putting it, literally, into practice.
I don’t know if I’m still early in my career. I got my license to practice medicine as a PA at the age of forty-one. I’m fifty-three now, and can see working for maybe another fifteen years or so.
People used to be afraid of disease because everyone knew a family that had lost a child to measles, polio, diphtheria, etc. Because of vaccines it's been several generations since those types of diseases were commonplace. The people who remember don't talk about it, and the people who don't know, can't imagine it.
Now people are afraid of accidents. Things like car crashes, and untended pools, because those are the things that could unexpectedly take their children. It doesn't occur to them that their perfectly healthy, happy child could develop a fever, and two days later they could be asked to make funeral arrangements.
I think you're absolutely right. The rise in polio is directly correlated to the rise in anti-vaxxers. It's not smallpox. These diseases weren't eradicated, they were just beaten into submission. But they're out there, just waiting for an opportunity to do what disease does, which is spread.
The truly sad part is that some of them are going to lose their children. Children that don't have to die.
Also, shoutout to antibiotics and antivirals. Between them and vaccines, death by disease, at least in first world countries, has plummeted over the last half century. Science has brought us so much, and to turn your back on it because you refuse to learn your own species history is just so. freaking. sad. And frustrating, and infuriating, and, and, and. 
I think he'll be back in practice again, real soon. He buys all that stuff.
sometime in September
and thanks for sharing that.
no condolences.
but congratulations on those happy 31 years!
...what you just related - brain saying one thing, mouth saying another. There were times when having to be diplomatic all the time was exhausting, and I often thought it might be fun to be a restaurant or movie critic so you could just say what you really thought AND get paid to do so.
Some years ago, I walked into an exam room to see a teenage boy with a history of asthma. I got about as far as saying "Hello" before his very stern-looking mother announced, "He won't use an inhaler, and he won't take any nasal sprays." I waited just a moment before replying, "Well, that's not going to leave me much to offer you." My brain was saying, "Then why the hell are you here?" This was before the days of any of the oral controller agents, so there really wasn't anything else.
Those who come in with their minds made up against vaccines are pretty much unreachable.
And she actually asked you if you knew what molecules are? 
Might have been interesting to say, "Why, no, I don't. Please tell me about them."
How refreshing that the next new patient was so rewarding to deal with.
