Thread by @medickinson

🧵I'm being contacted my lots of vaccine-hesitant people looking for answers to their questions. The first question I always ask is "how are you feeling?" Almost every time the person bursts into tears, words include overwhelmed, frightened, helpless. 1/5

We start with those feelings and talk about what's causing them. Then I let them know I'm not here to tell them what to do, just to guide them on their journey with evidence based information that will help them to interpret some of the things they have seen or read 2/5

I ask questions to find out what certain words mean to them. Yesterday I asked a person terrified of myocarditis if they knew what it was or meant? Silence....then they laughed out loud realising they were petrified of something they couldn't even define. 3/5

We then went through medical definitions of myocarditis together, learning about what it was, how it felt to experience & found data on who & how many it typically affected. We repeated this process for other fears. One call lasted over an hour & my dinner went cold 4/5

I'm a science communicator who can help people find and disseminate academic research. Even if you ask me what you should do I'll never give you an answer. Everybody is on their own journey - be kind, your journey was unique to you. Here are two messages from yesterday ❤️
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