I cannot understand physicians who believe their personal beliefs outweigh a patient’s right to evidence-based healthcare, even when death is on the line.
And I never will.
Hi! I’m an anesthesiologist. You may remember me from... let’s be real, you don’t remember me because I give you forget-me-drugs. I am pleasantly forgettable.
EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act) requires hospitals to provide emergency treatment to people, even if they don’t have insurance.
The law enacted by congress in 1986, requires hospitals that receive federal funds to stabilize patients.
EMTALA is a
backbone of medical ethics and necessary to protect patients from corporate greed.
Codifying protections like this into law is supposed to protect patients from laws like Idaho’s near total abortion ban.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments today about whether Idaho’s near-total abortion ban conflicts with EMTALA.
Idaho wants to deny emergency, life saving medical and surgical treatments to pregnant patients who need abortions - to save their lives.
This is about Idaho, but if the Court allows Idaho law to override EMTALA requirements, then the 14 other anti-abortions states either similar laws may follow suit.
This case will determine access to EMERGENCY abortions in emergency rooms across the country.
Listening to the arguments this morning - as a physician and bioethicist and as a pregnant capable person - is infuriating.
I don’t trust this conservative court to protect patients AT ALL.
It’s unethical for the AHA to tell you not to don PPE before starting CPR. You are not disposable.
(They jumped way too quickly with their Oct 2021 guidance.)
- Your Local Twitter Bioethicist
I am a woman in scrubs sitting at a desk charting. I am not a nurse, but thanks for interrupting my work, not introducing yourself, and assuming I am a nurse. The man sitting next to me in nearly identical outfit, also not a nurse.
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Not that you asked him.
I put off doing something for months because it felt like it would take forever. I just did the thing in 2 hours.
I will learn nothing from this experience.
Doctor: This patient could die without an emergency abortion!
Idaho: How sure are you? We want you to make sure she's mostly dead before you do anything to help her.
Damn it… after three years, I caught the Rona. It’s run amok in the Bay Area.
Feel like garbage. Picking up Paxlovid soon.
I wish this country had invested in improved ventilation instead of letting the discussion be all about masks and vaccines.
@fuzzymittens
In reality, this student is probably wildly insecure and desperate to be seen as worthy. This is a really dysfunctional and inefficient way to go about it.
This is a narrow slice of the many patients who need abortion. Specifically the patients who are most at risk for emergency related harm and death.
In the setting of the US’s abysmal rate of maternal morbidity and mortality is outrageous.
Another risk today is that the court will create an avenue for fetal personhood - which makes no sense on multiple levels.
We already saw Alabama’s supreme court rule that frozen embryos in test tubes should be considered children - with inherent rights.
Ironically, arguments
When your recovering patient *really really* wants horchata once they can drink, sometimes you
@DoorDash
it from a local taqueria and hand deliver to the ICU.
for fetal personhood undermine the conservative ideology related to parental rights.
They only want parental rights when it’s convenient to the anti-abortion ideology.
Apparently unless a physician is *confident* a patient will die from the lack of abortion, then they can’t provide it.
There is no opportunity in this scenario to err on the side of preserving a person’s life and health.
This runs counter to our duty to care.
Conservative justices showed no regard for
Pregnant people’s Personhood
Autonomy
Right to care
Physician’s duty to care - they’re so keen to protect doctors who don’t want to do their job, that they will hose any doctor who DOES want to provide standard medical care
Listening to lawyers talk about the ethical and moral duties of physicians is painful - ESPECIALLY when the Idaho AG he’ll bent on preventing docs from actually acting in good faith - which would involve preventing morbidity & mortality by providing emergency abortion care.
Listening to Alito, you would think that a fetus comes in arguing on its own behalf.
Again the massive conflict with parental rights movement is huge because they don’t want women to be able to make our own decisions.
Women in Idaho are NOT getting regular emergency care - they’re being airlifted to neighboring states.
ER docs have to be worried about fines and jail time TO DO THEIR jobs
Ever wondered what karaoke is like for pediatric anesthesiologists?
We all know the first 15 seconds of every single Disney song.
(None of us have ever heard the rest of the song. 🤷♀️ )
This guy is claiming differences opioid laws from state to state prove his theory that there is no national standard of care for emergency services to pregnant patients.
He lacks a depth of knowledge that opioid prescribing laws have caused immense harm to patients.
EMTALA requires transfer when a hospital can’t provide stabilization. Unfortunately, with so many abortion bans -
MANY PATIENTS ALREADY HAVE NO WHERE CLOSE TO GO
Goodbye Scout.
Scout was my medical school dog, our first baby, an honorary double board certified pediatric anesthesiologist, my first therapist.
His satellite dish ears were jaunty and soft as velvet.
He was the best boy.
No one tells pre-meds to work in fast food.
But maybe we should.
As a doctor, I'm still using lessons I learned working at In-N-Out as a college student.
Here are six fast food lessons I'll keep forever:
@SenTedCruz
@US_FDA
Make no mistake, the extensive data on mifepristone shows it is SIGNIFICANTLY safer than preganancy.
*Mifepristone is safer than viagra & penicillin
*safer than a large dose of Tylenol
@ANSIRH
has a handy summary on the FDA surveillance data.
US healthcare workers must be prepared to care for incarcerated people.
Unfortunately, few of us are taught how to do this.
For 19 years, I have answered ethics questions, including re: patients in prison.
Here are 7 pieces of ethical advice to protect your patients.
🧵👇
@SenTedCruz
@US_FDA
Tell that to the partners of women who died from pregnancy related complications. Thanks to systemic racism, Black women suffer far more complications than white women.
My intern year was my child’s 1st year of life. I was home so infrequently in her waking life that I think she thought I was a visitor or some nice lady that nursed her in the middle of the night.
So yeah I went home ASAP whenever possible.
I’m still a fantastic physician.
I have had students and residents that want to get out as soon as possible to see their family and others that are willing to spend an extra few to spin the urine or walk down to the ER to see the patient with the sodium of 103.
I know which ones I would want to care for me.
Main takeaways from the SCOTUS oral arguments today to let Idaho law gut EMTALA:
Conservative justices were eager to make this about
🛑 Conscientious objection (already well protected)
🫄Fetal personhood
🏳️⚧️ denying Gender affirming care
I'm pretty confused by seeing ppl saying "go ahead an unmask" when we're
- not actually done with omicron
- vaccine still not approved for <5 year olds
- and we're actively watching another omicron variant to see if it will be problematic
@HarrietHopfMD
@fuzzymittens
“Wow, med student. You must be going through a lot being a student in the pandemic. I’m sure your experiences have been really different than mine. Are you open to some advice about building relationships in the OR?”
We are not cops.
Healthcare workers have an ethical obligation to protect patients’ confidentiality.
We shouldn’t be telling cops ANYTHING without a warrant - minimum.
It's a drug 50 times more potent than heroin, and doctors say just touching it can send you to the emergency room. The synthetic opioid, fentanyl, its not only dangerous, but it contributes to a frightening spike in deaths in LA County.
An emergency craniotomy on an otherwise healthy baby is terrifying. I spent the whole case hoping we could work fast enough to reduce damage to her brain.
Give your baby vitamin K so we don’t have to do
#BabyBrainSurgery
and cut open their skull.
#vitaminK
#neurosurgery
Every time I am confronted with refusal of newborn vitamin K I die just a little inside. Family plans to refuse all interventions. Odds are the baby will be fine, but I bet they wouldn’t refuse an emergency craniotomy.
“Open when your 1st patient dies”
I wrote this letter to myself as a first year medical student. Then I lost it.
I’ve lost more than one patient in the last 15 years… I’ll open it when the time is right.
What do you hope I told myself? (Or that you would tell caregivers?)
@notreallyjcm
This makes my lecture tomorrow touching on the ongoing trauma from the U.S. genocide against Native Americans, forced removal of children from their families and culture, and forced assimilation of children feel even more relevant.
My babies would have died without formula. I tortured myself with
#breastisbest
while me infant lost weight - feeling it was my fault. When I noticed my first smelled like ketones, I opened a can of formula.
#fedisbest
Despite efforts to stop the harmful promotion of breast-milk substitutes, countries are still falling short in protecting parents from misleading information: WHO,
@UNICEF
,
@babyfoodaction
new report
🤱🏾
#breastfeeding
The highlight of the “wellness retreat” was definitely a colleague shouting I was “an ignorant slut” to “shut me up.”
Don’t worry. It was “just a joke.”
I had an awful
#USMLE
score. Based on that, I should not have been able to get into anesthesia. I have bad multiple choice anxiety & do not retain useless minutia. I am a solid doctor and clutch in an emergency. USMLE doesn’t test for what I bring to the table.
#USMLEPassFail
@HarrietHopfMD
@fuzzymittens
I usually opt for things that are less funny, but work for me. “I notice you snapped your fingers at me and used my name, but we haven’t properly met. I’m
@fuzzymittens
, the attending anesthesiologist. What’s your name? What’s your role?”
The incident at ACOG didn’t happen because “there wasn’t enough security.”
A spouse turned to violent public humiliation because of generations of institutional betrayal - organizations at every level protecting harassers and assaulters.
When I was an intern in the ER, I was pressured to suture a lac unsupervised on a young lady’s face. I had NEVER sutured on anyone conscious besides myself. I told the attending I was worried it would look bad. My protests were scoffed.
I wish the patient had asked for plastics.
Never forget for one second, how much absolute courage it took in 2019 to walk into work at a healthcare job.
In late 2021, the courage required has only increased, demands for your altruism never ending, taken for granted, and the opportunities to refuel diminished.
When incensed by an anti-abortion speech, it is profoundly professional to walk out.
It is one of the most civil responses one can have in the face of the loss of human rights, bodily autonomy, & medical education.
It is the very least we should expect of future physicians.
I hoped this pandemic had taught us HCWs that we should stay home when we’re sick and recover, rather than foolishly work through an illness.
But instead, the CDC recommends sending us back to work. Once again, HCW being told to pick up the slack in a crisis.
@KelseyObGyn
@DuchessSexpert
Funny, I saw a patient with sleeves and told him how much I love them and asked him to tell me about why they were meaningful. Not once did it cross my mind to say something profoundly problematic and disparaging. It wasn’t even difficult to not be an ass.
@michaelyehmd
If your patient doesn’t want trainees - ask them why with genuine curiosity. Are they afraid? We’re they harmed in the past by an inexperienced person?
You’ll get a lot more out of it than making shallow assumptions. Consent matters.
I know people who have had pharmacies refuse to fill Ivermectin prescriptions. The pharmacist's job is not to practice medicine but to check interactions, dosages, etc. Completely inappropriate to refuse to fill prescriptions.
Kid: Mom, were you just rolling your eyes?
Me: No honey... I’m just searching my brain for patience.
Kid: Well, you can’t see inside your brain, silly goose.
Patients profound worry over the costs of medical care - leading them to decline interventions & medications - do not mean they lack capacity to make decisions.
It means our healthcare system is broken. Patients know they are choosing food & rent over medical bills.
@lordbogamol
Elective, threatened, inevitable, incomplete, complete, septic, and missed abortion - when property and safety treated are life saving procedures.
Pregnancy loss is being criminalized bc of people who have an extremely limited understanding of pregnancy and abortion.
I can line up a baby for a liver transplant faster than I can get my kids out the door for school.
One more way to feel like a success at work and a failure at home.
So many front line workers are on the edge right now. If someone is acting strange - mean or withdrawn or frantic or too quiet or too loud or too much.... please consider taking a moment to recognize the stress we’re all facing.
We are not our best selves right now.
When I was accepted to medical school, I sent back the agreement letter covered in 40-ish star stickers.
When I arrived on campus, all the staff told me reviewing my letter made their day.
When we do things to express our joy, sometimes it rubs off on other people. 🤩
@HarrietHopfMD
@fuzzymittens
The first (and hardest part for me) is to regulate my own knee jerk reaction to lash out.
@fuzzymittens
is currently modeling one way to add time and reflection before action.
It’s actually NOT ok that your family is always last on your list. It can happen a few times, but we can’t continue to have a system that relies on us screwing our families.
We must prioritize systems that allow us to have complete lives with social support.