Sorry. I care about my patients more than any Social Media Site. So, when asked to choose between the two, I have to choose my patients. Because they need me. They drew the short straw in the land of opportunity. Sometimes, when it is politically expedient, politicians hold them up as a example or a lesson or a cry to action for us all. The rest of the time, they are forgotten, told to stand at the back of the bus and stay quiet.
I liked Bill Clinton OK when he was president. I fell in love with Bill Clinton at the end of his presidency when he did something he did not have to do. At a time of relative economic prosperity, he made a poverty tour of this country, his way of doing penance for all the poor folks he did not help.
Why did he do it? It did not improve his legacy. It showed how many people fell through the cracks. Everyone thought the economy was great. But you know what? A country in which there are always starving children and homeless vets has some pretty basic fundamental problems. And in order to address those problems, the first step is taking a look at those people crowded in the back of the bus. And the second step is looking down at your own feet and realizing that in a country which tolerates poverty and health care disparity and homelessness and racial inequality, we are all of us stuck in the back of the bus. Some of us just don't know it.
So, I am going to go on attempting to swim upstream and attempting to make a current in my wake to help some of my friends and neighbors swim upstream with me. It will take some creative thinking. It will take a lot of thick skin. I am not leaving any unnamed Social Media Sites because recently I have been called a 1) liar 2) not a family physician 3) an idiot 4) criminal and 5) stalked by other members. I am leaving because I was asked to leave. Well, not exactly. I was told that I would be forced to leave if I continue to do what I do. And hey, I can't help it. My heart would literally burst if I had to keep looking at all the suffering out there and not do something---anything to alleviate some of that pain.