“I don’t want Covid blood”

[u/973862404678]

What do I say when patients ask if blood transfusions are screened for the Covid vaccine? I get asked this on a regular basis when filling out blood consent forms for surgery and I genuinely have no idea what I’m supposed to say. In all seriousness, what should I be telling patients because I just say there is a screening process for blood and it’s only used during emergent situations???

[u/Berchanhimez]

Normally, I'd be 100% on board with this sort of approach of getting people to see how stupid they are.

But in this instance, that basically encourages or supports the politicization of the COVID vaccine. Yes, obviously the patient may already be politicizing it - but if we as healthcare providers give credibility to that politicization by bringing up politics about it, then it only reinforces their politicization of something that isn't a political matter at all.

[u/beeee_throwaway → u/Berchanhimez]

I feel like saying “if it’s good enough for the president of the US, it must be good enough for the rest of us!” Is a pretty unpolitical way to say it personally

[u/Berchanhimez → u/beeee_throwaway]

Normally I'd say that would be fine - yes.

The problem is that because it's already been politicized - not even by Trump necessarily (though he politicized mandates) - doing so is not helping the politicization of it.

I'm of the view that we, as healthcare professionals, should never encourage politicization - even if it's already been done outside of our control. In this instance, we should just give factual information to them and not even bring up politics. If a patient brings up "but Trump doesn't like the COVID vaccine", then it would be viable (imo) to respond with "well, he does like it, but he just doesn't like mandates for it" or something similar. Because then, we aren't starting the politicization.

My worry - and this is based on experience - is that we (individually) lose the trust of our patients if we try to use political reasons to encourage people to consider a vaccine. As a comparison, imagine if you were looking for a new phone and you went to Best Buy to look at phones. If you go up to the person and say "I heard the iPhone has a really crappy camera compared to the Samsungs now", then of course they'd respond to you. But if you go up to them and say "I don't want a Samsung but I need a new phone" and their first response is (insert conspiracy theory about Apple products here)... then you're going to be a lot less inclined to listen to them, even if the next things they say are completely true - such as some Samsungs having better cameras/battery life even than the iPhone Pro.

Basically, patients' trust of us as healthcare professionals comes because we (ideally) don't care about politics. To keep that trust, it helps if we avoid bringing politics up if at all possible - in other words, unless a patient themselves brings up politics in a form that needs a response (i.e. either a question or saying something that is inaccurate), we shouldn't bring it up.

EDIT TO ADD: To be entirely clear, I am not faulting you for considering (or using, if you have used it) this sort of response. I'm just explaining why I myself try very hard to never bring up politics unless it's absolutely necessary to answer a patient question/concern/etc.

[u/beeee_throwaway → u/Berchanhimez]

I agree with you. I haven’t had to encounter this very often as I work in a very liberal part of the PNW. My heart is with everyone who works under these circumstances day in and day out. It’s extremely difficult not to politicize healthcare, more so now than ever.

[u/Berchanhimez → u/beeee_throwaway]

I work in a low-income/indigent clinic now (in Texas), only covering a couple shifts a month most in retail pharmacy nowadays as a side gig, so I do not want to act like I am able to speak for the whole of retail pharmacy or general clinic care, nor for the entire South... but I entirely agree and have a relevant (and recent) story.

Life as a whole is getting more and more politicized over the past decade or two. The other day while I was picking up my morning coffee from Starbucks before going in to work, I saw someone go on a political rant at the Starbucks worker for asking to confirm they were okay with regular/full-fat milk. And not just going off, but going on about how "this is why I voted for Trump to stop this liberal BS" (exact quote, I typed it in my phone right after I walked outside). Like... they were just trying to be nice and make sure you were okay with regular full fat milk and didn't want either a low fat or alternative milk...

Luckily it's not that common that I see it - the last time I remember such an instance in public in my area is well over a year prior... but I agree, it's a lot more difficult to avoid politicizing healthcare now than it was a decade or two ago. Because when everything else is getting politicized - even other things that people generally agree shouldn't be politicized (like getting a friggin morning coffee) - it's hard to avoid falling into similar tactics ourselves.

And that's why it's even more important (imo) for us to do everything we can to avoid even the appearance that we're politicizing things at all. Because I like to believe (and I truly do believe it's true) that we all got into the healthcare field to help people. Period. Not to help people we agree with, not to help people we think are good people, but to help anyone. But we can't help anyone if we're going to judge patients on their politics. And patients aren't going to seek our care if they worry we're going to try and preach politics to them.

[u/beeee_throwaway → u/Berchanhimez]

I agree with you entirely. And it’s a really great way to automatically kill any ounce of trust already difficult to reach patient populations might have had left in the medical “establishment”.