Stories that stick with me:

A refugee from Afghanistan tearfully requested a letter to support her teenage daughters’ refugee claims. I asked for their names & dates of birth. She replied that she needs her husband to help because she wasn’t taught to read or write A patient who used to live in 🇺🇸 told me how she once had to pay $300 for an ultrasound confirming a miscarriage & had to make sure she could afford the co-pay before presenting to hospital while hemorrhaging.

Is anyone else alarmed at all the casual fascism going on? Attacking the news media & labelling them as enemies. Just one example of what I am referring to as “casual fascism”

https://twitter.com/bruce_arthur/status/1573453484875210752

I’ve now encountered 2 patients who are willing to decline blood transfusion because the blood supply is “contaminated” with COVID vaccine.

Anti-vaxxers & anti-maskers say that *we* are living in fear but it is people like this who are truly afraid. How did it come to this? Some believe that we will sneak COVID vaccine into their bodies while under anaesthesia or disguised as other medications.

Some believe in “vaccine shedding” & are afraid to be in a room with vaccinated people. They are therefore avoiding all in-person medical care.

After #December6 some reflections on how gender-based violence has impacted my own life *trigger warning*

Age 8: when a boy yelled to another “get her” & I was shoved to the ground, my lip bloodied, my mouth full of dirt.

My crime? Being “the smartest girl in school” At 14 it was obscene “candygrams” from boys in my class with phrases I didn’t understand. My father stormed into the principal’s office & ordered him to read them himself.

Candygrams got cancelled. I got blamed for ruining everyone’s fun because I “couldn’t take a joke”