The Narcissistic MD is Everyone's Problem
The Healthcare Wars, Part 6
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Dr. Roger Seheult continues to post raw, uncorrected statistics on Twitter that makes it appear as if the COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective (and those stupid anti-vaxx yokels are dying everywhere).
Previously, Dr. Seheult seemed to think that the unvaccinated in Texas were 15 times as likely to get COVID-19. Assuming that these experimental biological products are said to be even more effective against death, that would suggest that, were the figures he cited due to vaccine effectiveness, achieving a 100% vaccination rate would result in a substantially negative mortality rate.
Huh.
I wonder if he'll jump into the vax line every day and be the first to achieve immortality?
Josh Guetzkow jumped in to poke at Seheult about the Healthy User Bias, citing one of the articles I've written on the topic.
Seheult's response was entirely incomprehensible. And that's the best thing that I could say about it.
The first sentence makes no sense in any context, whatsoever. Even if it did, it would require some quantification. At least cite us something related to that first sentence, doc?
On the other hand, he did point to an interesting paper that I've previously discussed, and I'd already written into one of my HUB articles! The paper in question (Xu et al, 2021) screams "HUB!" about as loudly as any paper I've read to date. It was one of the papers I focused on during my presentation to Pandata.
Here is the slide in question:
This is Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) data which I talked about in Part 3 of the HUB series, and the discussion section states, "healthy vaccinee effects were found in all but the youngest age group." I would personally have written, "The healthy vaccinee effects appear to be not simply enormous, but unprecedentedly so. Though this effect is smaller for the youngest age group."
I mentioned to Josh that I'd tried to engage Dr. Seheult on the topic. I'd been polite about the offer, and giving of my time. I'd planned to walk Dr. Seheult through exactly the paper he cited, and numerous others after explaining how the statistics can be so extremely affected by the bias with both toy and real world examples.
Seheult's response was to block me. This is the classic narcissistic response. No Quad Board Certified Medical Educator need take…a Statistics lesson…from a Statistician…educator?
He has had the opportunity to upgrade his understanding of Statistics, guided through the process. But his knowledge combined with his mis-estimation of his grasp of the numbers puts him in the extremely dangerous zone where the peak of Mt. Stupid overlaps with Quad-level influence and responsibility. Instead of braving the Valley of Despair with me, Seheult erases me from view. Out of sight, out of mind.
And he is out of his mind if he doesn't think this matters.
Josh weighed in again.
I think that Josh is onto something, but that's another conversation for another day.
The Bigger Picture: The Corrupted Path Through Medical Training
Dr. Seheult is far from the worst offender. Indeed, he overlap of "Mt. Stupid" with medical responsibility has been shockingly normalized. While I'm picking on Seheult, I'd like to rein the problem back into a very serious point—one that is not his fault. The medical profession has been under assault since its inception precisely because the healing arts are a noble pursuit. And in modern times, the assaults on all of us are more twisted and more twisting.
It starts with an educational system designed to lobotomize the students.
The process is simultaneously more exalting and more cruel for the sorts of kids who make good grades, get into top universities, and have the tools to succeed with a premed curriculum. The priests who run the Academia just love those kids—just fawn over them. There is no time in all of that process to spare, and for those kids to learn anything about broader society through experience before committing to an extremely long process. And then the Kunlangeta to corrupt them—in medical school, and beyond, though it's unclear where that influence begins, exactly. In gifted class?
Who could stand up to J.D. Rockefeller? Apparently, nobody did within the universities allied with the allopathic school of thought. And so, that became the allopharmoco school of thought. It was also so normalized that hardly a soul stops to think about the transition.
After approximately 43 years of educational training, abuse, and residency, young physicians are then chucked into the specialists' maze, from which few humans ever return.
From there, you either perform Olympic gymnastics to declutter your philosophical path through impoverishment to dodge and weave around Dunning-Kruger, Gell-Mann amnesia, or various forms of cognitive dissonance. Some of this is even harder on the second generation Americans whose parents were sold this struggle as the American vision of excellence. It's no wonder doctors have such high rates of suicide and substance abuse. This is their problem, but it's also everyone's problem. Just like the problems we see in virtually every corner of society, it's the result of a complex set of forces that nobody steps up to resolve.
And somebody like Dr. Seheult stands in an interesting position. He is a well-known educator. And, dangerous overconfidence in his understanding of statistics aside, he's good at it. And if one Dr. Seheult stepped forward to say, "Yikes, this is all bloody crazy. I'm smart, but I've been wrong in some key ways. It is my fault, and I take responsibility, but it's the system's fault, so we all need to take responsibility."
It would be like the apology that we accept and appreciate (not the other type, or the other other type). It would be the beginning of leadership. We would root for him.
It's their training I think.
A long time ago when I first started out in ICU, docs could not believe I was a pharmacist. "you're too smart to be a pharmacist" "What a waste..here I will help you get into med school if you want. I know the dean"
But they cannot give you the credit for care to patients or other docs. Years ago we had a youngish patient with organizing type pneumonia from similar to that of Covid. I suggested a 24-48hr trial of steroids. The patient turned around fast and was extubated in 48hrs. They were all congratulating themselves. One resident said it must have been the steroids I prescribed. I reminded him who was the one with the idea. Oh yeah he said and shrugged his shoulders.
Even 30yrs later my resident came up with the cause of a young womans cyclical vomitting on her 3rd admission in 3 weeks. A history showed she used a lot of marijuana so likely hyperemesis cannabinoid syndrome. The attending physician disagreed IN THE CHART where we had written out a plan. Discharged the patient, then called the family doc and told them what to do for this syndrome.
They often cannot help themselves. They are taught they're the most intelligent, they are leaders, and more importantly, they have the responsibility for the health outcomes (even if you saved their behinds).
Many docs came to me in private and said I was the best thing that happened to the unit/hospital/program but WILL NOT say that to management, or other physician groups. I don't get it.
Our vaxxed vs. unvaxxed study (Paul Thomas' practice data) was retracted due to unsubstantiated HUB - they use it when it suits them. I then published this finding that the unvaccinated made their well-child visits with a greater fidelity than the vaccinated! https://popularrationalism.substack.com/p/new-study-from-ipak-results-shows Facts don't matter to clowns.