Hero Doctor
How crazy is this?
Li Wenliang, the doctor in China who was allegedly detained for warning others about the coronavirus before contracting the illness, has died, according to the hospital treating him.
Li, who according to the BBC is a 34-year-old ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, had claimed that in late December he shared his concerns about the illness via private chat with medical school graduates after several patients exhibited symptoms similar to SARS before he was visited and warned by authorities.
He was then summoned to Public Security Bureau where he was forced to sign a letter stating that he made false comments about the virus, the BBC reported.
My first question would be how the hell is an ophthalmologist the first doctor to figure this out over there? Or was everyone
This is also what happens when physicians are not in charge. When others keep their thumbs on us then we cannot do our job. This poor bastard paid with his life. So sad.
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This state action against a Chinese doctor sounding the alarm was frighteningly predicted in Max Brook’s phenomenal “World War Z” (incredible book, ignore the wretched movie) which looked at the effects of worldwide pandemic.
Doug is exactly right about what happens when we are not in charge; every bureaucracy, the media, politicians, and their Big Insurance/Hospital/Pharma handlers are bent on turning doctors foremost into agents of the state. This is not paranoia, but the instinct of society that believes health care is a government-provided right. For the “public good” doctors can and will be ordered to do or say things they know to be factually wrong, and may find morally objectionable. State medical boards and CMS are ready – and willing – to be the framework for re-education of malcontents.