Who Are We Becoming?

As a full spectrum family physician working in a primary care clinic and on the inpatient floors of a tertiary academic hospital, I increasingly find myself wondering if certain current COVID-19 public health recommendations are truly making us healthier people. It seems instead that the public is swelling with unbridled fear, manifesting itself as anxiety and harsh societal judgement.

It is amazing how polarized people feel in regards to the best approach of reopening the country in the wake of the coronavirus “stay at home orders” and advisories. In the midst of the noise and the evolving regional public health guidelines, I think it’s clear that no one knows quite what to do. I am starting to question if all of these restrictions are truly making us mentally, emotionally and physically healthier people. As a physician, I see health as a composite of mind, body and soul. Yet, between telemedicine clinic calls and recreating in public, I can bear witness to the overwhelming amount of angst that has been generated from this pandemic. It is an anxiety that feels like it has only produced more impatience, more judgmental thoughts, more prioritization of self and a whole host of irrational thinking. Patients are calling into the office requesting that I prescribe things like “plant-based vitamin C supplements” (isn’t that an orange?) while in a parallel family consultation, I find myself trying to explain why a 90-year-old demented grandmother should not get intubated and coded in the context of COVID-induced respiratory failure.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so disheartened by the precipitous decline of rational thought — because — in fear there IS no organization. Fearful people lack the capacity for orderly, sensible logic. With anxiety, we operate out of an emotional “fight or flight” response, not out of reason. Fear becomes provocative and paralyzing at the same time.

I was reflecting on a podcast I heard the other day about peoples’ instinctual nature in responding to anxiety. For some, we launch into unparalleled productivity, bounding forward with a litany of tasks, check lists, and organized piles — a state of hyper-drive or “over-functioning” as a coping mechanism to our stress. For others, anxiety provokes a sputtering, swirling state of the exact opposite — a place of complete “under-functioning” in which decision making and forward movement come to a complete standstill.

This appalling state of fear has recently driven a man in Boston to pull a knife on a runner for not wearing a mask. Since when has wearing a mask become a measure of morality, or not wearing one become a justification for violence?

Who are we becoming?

I fear with the cadence in which we continue in this climate, we may become worse versions of ourselves. My intent in writing this is not a political one. It runs much deeper than party lines. It is a petition to bring us back to our own humanity — our humanness — that which binds us together as a society. My request is for us to let go of some of our anxiety. To be kind to one another. And gracious with each other. And in humility, consider that you — and I — don’t have all the answers. Let us reflect on the message we are modeling to younger generations who are watching us become motivated by fear, provoked in our own self-righteousness, and forgetting what it means to love our neighbor and serve our fellow man. May we consider health in the context of the whole person — mind, body and soul — and use this as our measure to find some middle ground.

Laura Adam, MD

Jon Greenwald Obstetrics and Gynecology Fellow

Clinical Instructor at Boston University

Boston Medical Center, Boston, MA

Note: The statements and opinions in this article do not represent the formal views of any staff or persons affiliated with Boston University or Boston Medical Center.