Faces of the Fight from Dr. Marc Sheckter: Personal choices can affect others
By Dr. Marc Sheckter, FIT for Active Living (redeployed to Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation)
Over 10 months have passed since my first submission in the Faces of the Fight series was published. Since then so much has changed, and so much remains unchanged.
What has changed? I’m double vaccinated, as are my wife and teenage daughter. I am no longer fearful of COVID-19 like I once was. I still have a healthy respect for the virus – I remain diligent about hand hygiene and I never stopped masking in indoor public spaces – but I am confident that if exposed to it my family and I will ultimately be okay.
What is unchanged? Our healthcare system is stretched to the breaking point, and frontline healthcare workers who have been the heroes of the pandemic from its outset are burned out. I can’t believe we’re in a fourth wave, worse than any of the previous three. It didn’t have to be like this.
I have a complex mix of feelings – sadness, anger, resentment, puzzlement, incredulity – where the unvaccinated are concerned. I’ve heard all the reasons people choose not to get vaccinated, but the common thread always seems to come down to this: it’s a personal choice and vaccination is not the right choice for me. Full stop.
Let me address that directly.
Yes, whether to accept a vaccine is a personal choice. But no, it’s not full stop. Here’s a story from my professional practice that I think about where vaccine hesitancy is concerned.
Several years ago, I was treating a patient a few months after his stroke. It was clear to me that he was impaired cognitively and behaviorally. I became alarmed when he told me he was still driving, and I informed him that I had a duty to forward his information to SGI’s Medical Review Unit so that he might undergo formal evaluation regarding capacity to drive. He pleaded with me not to make this report. Our conversation unfolded as follows:
Me: It would be a terrible thing if one day I came into work and you weren’t here because you made a driving error and crashed your car into a tree.
Patient: It’s my personal choice to drive, and it’s my responsibility if I’m in an accident.
Me: It would be even worse if you weren’t here because you made a driving error and ran over a group of schoolchildren crossing the street.
Patient (hesitating): Yes, that would be bad, but I would never do something like that because I trust myself not to.
Me: Imagine the following scenario. Next door, right now, my colleague is having a conversation with his patient identical to the one you and I are having. And his patient pleads with him, as you’re doing with me, not to report him to SGI. And my colleague thinks to himself “Okay, this is too unpleasant and this patient is really convincing that he’s on top of all this.” So my colleague leaves well enough alone. And a week later, his patient makes a driving error and runs over your wife with his car. What do you think about that?
That did the trick. My patient dropped his objection to my reporting his information to SGI.
The personal choice to remain unvaccinated makes it more likely you’ll get sick, infect others, and require medical care. So imagine the following scenario. Your spouse, or child, or parent, has an accident or becomes gravely ill with something other than COVID-19. And the person you love so much cannot access treatment because there are no more beds, and all the nurses and physicians are looking after COVID-19 patients. Your personal choice affects others, because you are part of something bigger than yourself.
Vaccines are a medical miracle, proven safe and effective, which can deliver us from this ongoing nightmare. If you care about more than just yourself, do the right thing and roll up your sleeve.
