Physicians and other health care workers battling the COVID-19 pandemic are fighting “a war on two fronts,” said Susan Bailey, MD, president of the America Medical Association, in a Jan. 15 Breakthrough Thinking Conference Series session.
Dr. Bailey, the 175th president of the AMA, is a distinguished allergist/immunologist from Fort Worth, Texas. She presented the talk “Physician Leadership in a Time of Urgency and Transition,” which was available to all UNMC faculty, staff and students, via Zoom.
Miss the presentation? View a recording of the event.
She lamented that “a few bad actors have politicized a public health crisis” — the worst such crisis in 100 years.
While health care workers and scientists worked to fight the pandemic, they also found themselves in “a public relations war that has questioned the legitimacy of our work and our motives.”
But that is why it is especially important to show leadership at this time, both as individuals, and through the collective effort of organizations like the AMA.
“Honest and consistent communication is essential,” Dr. Bailey said. “People may need to hear the same messages in different ways and from different sources.”
Dr. Bailey acknowledged that there has been some hesitancy on vaccine adoption. She also acknowledged that in some cases this hesitancy is understandable because communities of color have been subject to harmful and racist practices.
In addition, some have questioned the speed at which the vaccine was developed. Dr. Bailey said some of her own patients have said, “This all happened so fast.”
“We need to address vaccine confidence issues head on,” she said.
The drug development pipeline was working, for once, without worrying about financial viability. And, it had an incredible head start, on developing these vaccines. There was already a previous decade’s worth of work to draw upon.
“They achieved in less than a year what often takes years,” Dr. Bailey said. “A friend of mine said, ‘They cut the red tape but they didn’t cut corners.’ ”
But it will take leadership — from the federal government, to local health centers, to individual practitioners — to earn the trust essential to getting to that crucial 80% vaccination rate needed to meet herd immunity.
The AMA stands ready to work with — and if necessary, put pressure on — the incoming Biden administration.
“We pick our opportunities and battles very strategically,” with each administration, Dr. Bailey said.
Dr. Bailey graded America’s response to the pandemic as an “incomplete.”
There are inspirational individual stories galore, including vaccines that came at truly warp speed. But, deaths will soon hit 400,000, and counting.
“The stubborn independence of Americans, which we pride ourselves on, has not worked in our favor,” she said.