ZDoggMD: Hey, everyone. It’s Dr. Zubin Damania. That’s right. When I use my full name, it usually means stuff’s about to get real. OK, guys, I’ve heard about the firing of Dr. Ming Lin up in Washington state. He is a physician, an emergency doctor, who was fired by his organization, PeaceHealth, up there, for speaking out about the complete lack of PPE and protection for frontline staff.
This has been reported all over the place. Here is the bottom line, guys. As clinicians, as the tribe of healthcare, COVID-19 will be the catalyst that burns this broken system to the ground. Here’s why. When you have a dominator hierarchy where the profession is run by MBAs at the top, getting ridiculous salaries, who have never touched a patient … right? I’m not talking about clinician leaders. I’m not talking about all those organizations around the country that are so well led, where it’s a team, where every member of the team has a voice, where we’re all in this together, where everyone’s practicing at the top of their training together in service of the patient and each other. That’s called Health 3.0. That’s not what we have in most institutions in this country.
What we have is this scenario where a businessperson turns a beautiful, sacred calling, our sacred calling, into dollars and cents, and yachts and bonuses and golden parachutes. Then when a crisis happens, where we’re called on to sacrifice our lives in service of this calling, they sit there and say, “You can’t have a voice.”
This ends today. This is the end of the administrative technocracy that has destroyed medicine. COVID-19 will wash this filth back into the sea from which it oozed out. This is the end of it and I’ll tell you why.
We on the frontlines of healthcare will hold every single leader accountable when this is over. Why do I say, “When this is over?” Because now we’re doing what we do to save lives with no support and no protection. When we speak out, what happens? “You’re fired.” Is this the most absurd thing you’ve ever heard in your life?
Here is what we demand as clinicians, because when this is over we will never forget what they did. When this is over, this is what we’re going to demand. If they don’t give it to us, we are going to walk. We will create it ourselves.
We will go to those organizations that are already doing this, and they exist all around the country. Clinician-led, wonderful groups that take the MBAs and use what they know to keep the lights on, while people who actually are at the bedside touching patients run the show.
What we demand is this. We demand an end to gag orders. We demand an end to non-competes. We demand an end to non-clinical leadership telling us how to take care of patients. We demand an end to the administrative technocracy. We demand an end to HIPAA as it sits.
It has been a gag on us. We’re unable to innovate. We’re unable to speak out. HIPAA should be a choice for the patient. They control their privacy, not you. How many times have we heard HIPAA being used as a sword against clinicians who need to speak out? “Well, we’re worried about patient privacy.” No, you’re not. You’re worried about someone figuring out how much you make and how little you do to actually help patient care. You are a parasite. When this is done, the people who have done this — the people who fired Ming, anybody like that — we’re going to flip the script.
I am not a medical man but can a conversation be had about the benefits of Carbon Dioxide for breathing please? I am concerned that many sufferers are currently being suffocated with oxygen masks. Twenty years ago Russian scientists Professors Buteyko and Stalmatski discovered that oxygen cannot transfer through the lung alveoli into the bloodstream unless CO2 is actually present in the lungs. I can corroborate that in a small way. I recall in the military when recruits would collapse during long marches carrying weight at speed. They would sometimes collapse into hyperventilation – which is extremely dangerous and often… Read more »
No climate scientist would ever say that we don’t need co2. We produce co2 as part of respiration and plants need it for photosynthesis.
The issue today is that the fragile balance of co2 and o2 has been shifted with the burning of carbon that ik has lain in the earth for millennia. It is this extra co2 that is causing the climate emergency we are experiencing.
Good luck.
Just realize you are not only up against MBA’s in the management but also up against the Financial turds in the Pharma Boards who sees any doctor aiming for curing patients as a threat to business.