Yeah. It’s just so effing stupid. It wasn’t even organized by the students, it was organized by one of the fathers. And a bunch of the kids just used it as an excuse to cut class, leaving less than 5 minutes into the “protest.” And one kid said it was the lamest demonstration he’d ever attended, telling the organizer, “this was lame. There wasn’t even any picketing.” And the guy responded: bring a sign.
Again, it is merely their incompetence that is saving us.
But I hate how the media is reporting this shit as if it’s a majority or a lot of people when, in this case, it’s well under 10%. Where’s the “both sides” reporting in these instances??? Why no quotes from any of the 90+% of kids who didn’t walk out? SMH
SO JEALOUS! We had over 500 in Maine (population about 1.3M) on Saturday, and 7 deaths
THE BOARD’S PERSPECTIVE ON MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT
This item is in response to a psychiatric colleague’s recognition that healthcare practitioners are reluctant
to seek mental health treatment when they need it.
We all know that practicing the professions licensed by the Board of Medicine can be stressful, and at
times that stress can be additive to other circumstances occurring in our lives. This has been particularly
evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to The Physicians Foundation 2021 Physician
Survey: COVID-19 Impact Edition: A Year Later, more than half of physicians (57%) have felt
inappropriate feelings of anger, tearfulness or anxiety because of COVID-19. 46% of physicians have
withdrawn or isolated themselves from others. 34% have felt hopeless or without purpose. Despite these
symptoms, only 14% of physicians sought medical attention. Board Briefs does not know if these
numbers are characteristic of the other professions licensed by the Board of Medicine, but it would not be
surprising if they give similar responses. These numbers may show that even when the individual knows
he/she needs some help and wants to get that help, there is reluctance to do so for fear of a licensing
sanction from the Board of Medicine. So Board Briefs hopes the following is helpful.
The mission of the Board is to protect the public. Part of that mission is to protect the public from
impaired physicians and other healthcare providers that may not be safe to practice due to mental health
issues. Obviously, the Board wants all its licensees to be safe to practice and heartily supports mental
health treatment for all who feel they need it. A healthier, happier healthcare professional is more likely to
be safer and more effective. And mental health treatment can help accomplish that.
Everyone should understand that the Board is about conduct. Its mission is to ensure licensees are able to
safely and competently conduct their practice. It is not about a diagnosis that they may carry, especially a
diagnosis “in remission”.
As you may know, the Board’s disciplinary system is complaint and report driven. Healthcare
professionals that treat other healthcare professionals have reporting requirements that perhaps have been
misunderstood by those who want to access mental health treatment.
A treatment provider has the responsibility to report a licensee in treatment to the Board “unless the
attending practitioner has determined that there is a reasonable probability that the person being treated is
competent to continue in practice or would not constitute a danger to himself or to the health and welfare
of his patients or the public.” The attending practitioner’s discretion is applicable to outpatient and
inpatient treatment.
Some of this discretion for reporting has recently been extended to CEO’s and Chiefs of Staff in
hospitals, as well as administrators of some other facilities. A healthcare professional is to be reported
within 30 days if admitted voluntarily to a hospital “for treatment of substance abuse or a psychiatric
illness that may render the health professional a danger to himself, the public or his patients.” Note that
this language allows the CEO/Chief of Staff to coordinate with the attending practitioner on the decision
if a patient meets the threshold for reporting by representing a danger to himself, the public or his
patients. If the threshold for reporting is not met by the time of discharge, no report is required. However,
if a licensee is involuntarily admitted to a facility, then the CEO or Chief of Staff must report within 5
days.
BOTTOM LINE: Get help if you need it. The Board wants its licensees in good shape to serve the
patients of the Commonwealth
I can’t testify to the accuracy of the statistics, but they sound right. I can also say that allowing someone to determine my competence to practice not based on what I do, but on what I may say to them, is not going to encourage any sort of openness in a therapeutic relationship at all. I suspect that this was meant to encourage us to seek help when we need it (I mean, it says that at the end) but most of us are quite paranoid about anything that would draw the attention of the Board, and despite the urging of many of us, the option for confidentiality was rejected. This basically amounts to “trust us, we will probably treat you fairly.” Sigh.
In addition to removing the video, YouTube has suspended Bolsonaro for seven days, national newspapers O Estado de S Paulo and O Globo reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.
I’m still surprised by how effective the vaccines were.
My city (almost 500k, brazil) had a 10 day streak without deaths, the daily cases are between 10 and 20, and looking at the recent data trend, it may fall a bit more.
