Thread by @GIMaPreceptor

#medtwitter #meded #pediatrics #IMProud

Reflecting on an undeniable threat to our patients - pregnant Moms, children, seniors, families, communities

Denied freedom.. a 🧵

Denied freedom to

shop for a prom dress

walk the mall with your child

go to your doctor

2/?

Denied freedom to

worship

go to the supermarket

go to school

teach in school

To do these things without being snuffed out, there one second and gone the next

Freedom to breathe, to come home that day

Freedom to access life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ->

3/

But freedom is layered, complex; each of us sees &lives it differently, we prioritize freedoms individually

Who’d have thought freedom, as foundational as we purport it to be, is so individually interpreted and variegate?

Why should a doc be tweeting this? ->

4/

.. bc it’s in the societal grey of freedom, with its different interpretations, where some of our patients die, &die violently &early, so we’ve got to ask/understand/speak/advocate

Some other freedoms that are far reaching:

Freedom to bear arms
Freedom to bear any arms

5/

Freedom to carry arms
Freedom to access guns
Freedom to love freely
Freedom to deal with failed contraception as one sees fit
Freedom to live through an ectopic pregnancy or survive a pregnancy threatened by sepsis
Freedom to treat a patient in medical trouble
Freedom to->

6/

.. see a doctor at all
Freedom to see a doctor for mental health
Freedom to vote
Freedom to peacefully protest
Freedom to gerrymander
Freedom to impinge one set of values or worldview on another

Freedom to avoid being snuffed out by someone else’s lens on freedom

7/

Well, freedom isn’t so straightforward ..

Some of the above listed freedoms may be seen as inviolate by some, not so by others. Some may seem wrongheaded to some, but not to all

As physicians/nurses/respiratory therapists/chaplains &teams, though, WE -> ..

8/
… see life leave via the dangerous mess that is the societal grey of freedom

Our disparate freedom views can snuff out the seven, sixteen, and twenty three year olds with bullets, and can snuff out the expectant Moms with complications

We’re normalizing it, it’s woven in

9/

A word at this point

Encumberability - it may not be a real word, but some of the freedoms above should be unencumbered - all those that make life, liberty and a pursuit of happiness fairly tangible

Some of the freedoms above, however, need to be responsibly regulated ->

10/

there needs to be clear acknowledgment - freedoms that can curtail, menace, threaten life and peaceful agency of another, .. those freedoms need to be encumbered, and need to be responsibly accessed and applied w the greatest of respect and common sense

And #medtwitter ->

11/

.. stand for our oath, our love of promoting health, equity, peace

These are our lanes. Many of our patient’s very lives are at stake, as is a reasonable expectation that we all continue breathing through &survive a random day

Freedom - practicing medicine is intertwined

12/ @dhpomerantz @EricLast3 @gabrieldane @MParshleyMD @PDX_Tom @mmteacherdoc @sue_bornstein @meggerber @CchristmColleen @joemd @yejnes @millstej @jbcowartmd @drsusan @susanhirsch49 @gbosslet @ETSshow @Elate_Collected @LuTorresDeasMD @sagar_ankita @aoglasser @EileenBarrettNM