Dear Doctor: Thank You From a Potential Future COVID Patient
In March, I started following some New York doctors and frontline healthcare workers on Twitter (e.g., #MedTwitter). These select groups of (unfortunate) insiders were dealing with the initial surge of cases. Their tweets and threads helped me understand details about COVID-19 during a time when we knew very little about the virus (remember when we thought children couldn’t get sick, but no one was talking about aerosol particles as a means of transmission?)
During those early months of extreme confusion (exacerbated by mixed messages from Trump and his cronies), the doctors I followed helped me understand the virus’s severity. They painted a clear picture of what it means for patients and their families when a hospital becomes overwhelmed.
They clarified the importance of wearing masks, social distancing, and doing everything I possibly could to stay out of the hospital in the midst of a pandemic. Their tweets also gave me a glimpse into the terrible challenges they were facing from a largely clueless public.
MedTwitter is just like any other clique on Twitter. It talks to itself. It has inside jokes. It is an echo-chamber of shared experiences and jargon, a place to vent hard realities that are difficult for outsiders to understand. But some non-medical people understand more than others.
