
Frightened doctors face off with hospitals over rules on protective gear - bookofjoe
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/health/hospitals-coronavirus-face-masks.html
======
pmorici
Minus the retaliation this jives with what a friend who is a doctor at a
hospital in the Midwest has told me. Hospital administrators and even other
doctors who should know better making obviously incompetent policies and
saying obviously wrong things about when to wear PPE.

I also think the headline characterizing doctors who want to wear PPE as
"frightened" is extremely inappropriate. I don't wear my seat belt in the car
because I'm frightened of dying in a car wreck I wear it because it reduces my
chance of a bad outcome in the event a crash happens.

~~~
craftinator
> I also think the headline characterizing doctors who want to wear PPE as
> "frightened" is extremely inappropriate. I don't wear my seat belt in the
> car because I'm frightened of dying in a car wreck I wear it because it
> reduces my chance of a bad outcome in the event a crash happens.

I have several friends in the medical health field who have described
themselves as "frightened" to be at work because of the lack of PPE (1 N95
mask, 1 scrub kit per day). They are exposed, repeatedly throughout the day,
every day they go to work, while working 12+ hr shifts. I would expand on your
seat belt analogy: they are like professional truck drivers, forced to drive
the wrong direction on freeways, dodging cars throughout the day, and their
seatbelts degrade with every car they dodge. One of them is already showing
symptoms, all the rest are sure they've been exposed to heavy viral loads.

~~~
pmorici
No doubt, point is that the way the headline is written implies wanting to
wear PPE full time in the hospital is some how the irrational action of a
frightened person when in fact it's really a very rational level headed thing
to want to do irrespective of whether or not that person is afraid.

------
dchichkov
Illuminating - _When Dr. Nikicicz insisted on wearing a mask, he received a
text from his boss, the chief of anesthesia, accusing him of overreacting. The
text read: “UR WEARING IT DOWN A PUBLIC HALL. THERES NO MORE WUHAN VIRUS IN
THE HALLS AT THE HOSPITAL THAN WALMART. MAYBE LESS.”_

Well. It seems, it is this -
[http://paulgraham.com/cred.html](http://paulgraham.com/cred.html) \- _These
people constantly make false predictions, and get away with it_. The question
is, how to reconnect ability of making good predictions and credibility?

