Saturday, September 25, 2021

DISTRUST OR MISTRUST

     In medicine we come across many situations where I am surprised at the behavior of the patients or the relatives of the patients. I can understand that we all have different experiences in life and also we have different educations and we all are different individuals. So we will think differently and behave differently . But certain things are more accepted than others . So in this pandemic I have seen things that I did not think I had seen in past. So this blog is related to such opinions. 

   I saw this 78 years old lady and her daughter who was may be 58 years old . They came to me for pulmonary follow up. In my routine for this pandemic has been to ask them on signs and symptoms of COVID and now that we have vaccine to ask them if they are vaccinated . So they had no symptoms of COVID infection on our screening questions  and so I was seeing them in office. So when I sked her as to the vaccination for the COIVD , they said they did not have it. So I asked why did you not get it ? The answer surprised me .The daughter told me that they don't trust such shots . So I asked why don't you trust this , Everyone is taking vaccine. She answered that 'In past they have been used as scape goats (African Americans) for medical experiments and so they do not want vaccine'. I did not go in detail. But I am not sure what is cause of this distrust. But I did tell them that if you see the lines that are shown on TV news of the people that are waiting to get vaccines ,it is mixed population - the Asians were much higher than Caucasians  and Hispanic and African Americans were less . But everyone gets same vaccine .

  The second story is of a Hispanic patient. She is 85 years old and has some lung issues and she was admitted to hospital with COIVD pneumonia. On further work up she was also noted to have clots in lungs and she has significantly low oxygen and she was on BIPAP -oxygen given under pressure . She did not want to be put on respirator. So I was talking to the patient and the daughter on daily basis. On the first day she refused the Remdesivir which is a standard treatment for the COVID . So I called the daughter and then the patient agreed The reason was she did not trust any medicine or the vaccine that was related to COIVD . So we did start her on treatment and she continued to need  high oxygen flow . Then the daughter asked me if she could get flax seed capsules and elderberry capsules . So she did not want the standard treatment for the COVID as she had DISTRUST in the medical treatment even though that had some data as to the effectiveness - but had MISTRUST in theses over the counter products WHICH HAD NO DATA  as to the effectiveness !!!!