"At the end of another long shift treating coronavirus patients, Dr. Hadi Halazun opened his Facebook page to find a man insisting to him that "no one's dying" and that the coronavirus is "fake news" drummed up by the news media.
"Hadi tried to engage and explain his firsthand experience with the virus. In reply, another user insinuated that he wasn't a real doctor, saying pictures from his profile showing him at concerts and music festivals proved it.
"I told them: 'I am a real doctor. There are 200 people in my hospital's ICU,'" said Halazun, a cardiologist in New York. "And they said, 'Give me your credentials.' I engaged with them, and they kicked me off their wall."
"I left work and I felt so deflated. I let it get to me."
"Halazun, like many other health care professionals, is dealing with a bombardment of misinformation and harassment from conspiracy theorists, some of whom have moved beyond posting online to pressing doctors for proof of the severity of the pandemic.
"And it's taking a toll. Halazun said dealing with conspiracy theorists is the "second most painful thing I've had to deal with, other than separation of families from their loved one."
By contrast, our state has a new nickname, "Maskachusetts." Governor ordered mask use in public places May 6th, with few exceptions. He's one of a rare few, a wise Republican. Of course, with 75,000 cases and an educated population, it gets hard to deny reality.
The segment of the population that understands things about how to take care oc themselves, is far less likely to end up in tbe ER for whatever reason, than the segment of the population thay is least equipped to make good choices about how to care for themselves. Its the curse of the ER. The patients who can't be helped are the ones who need the most help.
I already answered your post once, but I thought today's Daily Stoic message is a spot-on response to this doctor, and to all of us:
"Like any person in power, any person in the public spotlight, any person striving to be great, Marcus struggled with caring too much about what other people thought of him. Good or bad—as animals, we are designed to think this matters, lest our evolutionary ancestors risk being driven from the tribe. So Marcus worked to remind himself that praise and criticism were really the same thing: a clacking of tongues. Throw away the recognition, throw away the gossip, throw away all grousing from your haters, he said—it’s worthless.
What Marcus was reminding himself of is exactly what Nita Strauss, one of the best guitar players in the world, told us when we asked her about dealing with all the noise inherent in an industry defined both by media criticism and adoring fans:
One thing you realize quickly as a female in the music industry is that everyone has a strong opinion about you. It’s been my challenge to isolate my view of myself from anything people say about me, the good or the bad. At the end of the day, none of the criticism or the accolades changes anything real in my life. About two years ago, I stopped reading comments on news articles about me altogether...I used to love the feeling of proving people wrong, of walking out in front of an audience who expected very little of me and changing their minds. Now I find myself focused less on proving people wrong, and more on improving myself and my performance.
That’s what comes from this tuning out—from ignoring the clacking of tongues and hands: More time to focus on your work. More time to listen to the voice inside yourself, the one that knows what you actually believe and who you actually want to be. And most importantly: Peace and stillness. What we want is what Marcus wanted:
“The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.”
You deserve that. You deserve that today. The only person you have to impress is yourself. The only person to listen to is yourself. Because you already know what matters, what good and bad are (or sound like), you already know what is right.
So listen."
Why even engage with people like this? On the rare occasions when it happens to me, I just block them. I get the frustration, but to let them get to you is a formula for a lifetime of frustration. Stupid, intolerant, brainwashed, whatever the reasons, just ignore it or only engage to the point where it will not weigh you down. I suspect many of these trolls do this because it is the only time anyone takes them seriously. For example, I've seen enough of your posts to have a good idea of your level of interest in a guy that would troll like this. Imagine how frustrated the guy actually is. Ignore, move on.........
Assholes like these should either be forced to work in the morgue of the hospitals, or be thrown off the edge of the flat earth. Then again they themselves are probably just crisis actors...
I realize some people have reasons to be on FB, but this is a perfect example of why I'm not.
One of my best friends is an ICU nurse in Alabama, and she knows damn well this is happening. The contract nurses I work with in the DOC know damn well. Every health care professional knows.
Are people disappointed by the lack of bodies in the streets?