COVID-19 misinformation is a public health crisis [PODCAST]

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“Government officials, regardless of political affiliation, should seek sound medical advice before communicating with their constituents. Appropriate public health information should be shared so that constituents are not harmed by following misinformed medical information. Government officials, news media, and social media platforms should account for the health information they spread. We must combat misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic so that we are better prepared to handle a potential second wave or any viral outbreaks in the future.”

Jacob Uskavitch is a medical student.

He shares his story and discusses his KevinMD article, “COVID-19 misinformation is a public health crisis.”

This episode is sponsored by The Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX). The Nuance DAX solution makes it possible to forget the tech-toggling and reduces documentation burdens no matter how or where care is being provided.

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Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Today on the show, we have Jacob Uskavitch. He’s a medical student, and he wrote the KevinMD article “COVID-19 misinformation is a public health crisis.” Jacob, welcome to the show.

Jacob Uskavitch: Thank you for having me.

Kevin Pho: So we’ll get into the article in a little bit, but first off, can you share your story and your journey to where you are today?

Jacob Uskavitch: I’m a third-year medical student in Tennessee. Kind of how my article came about was COVID-19; everybody knows about that. But as a medical school, and as a student, we were actually taken out of our clerkships because of COVID and not uncertainty of, you know, PPE in hospitals, how much students can be involved in patient care during that time. And during that time, we were taking online classes, and we were taking a public health course. One of the questions we talked about in the course was: What is the most daunting public health challenge that we may leave for future generations?

For me, I guess my thought process was that I think misinformation is a big challenge that we may leave for future generations. And my thought process behind it is that we have a lot of public health challenges in this nation, but one thing that is universal across them is how we can respond to those public health challenges. And for me, I think that misinformation really hurts our ability to scale our response to public health challenges. Therefore, misinformation that is across the board affects all the challenges. So therefore, we really leave future generations at a disadvantage if we don’t educate them about appropriate public health responses.

Kevin Pho: So let’s transition into that KevinMD article, “COVID-19 misinformation is a public health crisis.” You gave a broad overview of some of the reasons why, but let’s get into more specifics. Give some examples of how, specifically, misinformation is a public health crisis.

Jacob Uskavitch: So I think one of the reasons is mask wearing, kind of the different opinions or topics that people believe about mask wearing. Masks are safe and effective for people to wear, and it definitely slows the spread of COVID-19. However, people think that mask wearing has detrimental respiratory effects, and I think that’s something that we really need to expand our public health messaging around.

The second is testing. Testing doesn’t really increase COVID-19 presence in America. COVID-19 is there; testing just highlights and actually shows the accurate number of people who have COVID, right? So I think the biggest misinformation battles facing our nation right now are in regard to mask wearing and what testing actually does.

Kevin Pho: Now, what are some of the reasons why there’s misinformation? Of course, people get information from different sources, like social media and various television networks. I think we have conflicting messages from federal, state, and local governments, and even the CDC and public health officials, they’ve given conflicting messages. What do you think is the most damaging reason why there’s misinformation that’s out there?

Jacob Uskavitch: Well, the most damaging reason why there’s misinformation out there is because people want scientific data to back up their own opinion, whether that be political, social, or whatever, right? But I believe that we really need to listen to the CDC, FDA, and health care officials, and even state-level health departments, right? There’s overwhelming evidence that masks work, and so I really believe that, you know, we should listen to the science.

I’m not sure how I, as a student, can really resolve the conflicting information, and I think we always will have conflicting information between different people. I think we should have, you know, a robust debate, but I think debating misinformation that masks don’t work doesn’t really get us to the point of responding to COVID-19.

Kevin Pho: So under normal circumstances, I would say yes, trust the CDC. But there have been stories in The New York Times about how there’s political pressure applied to the CDC, and how the federal government is either silencing or actively undermining the CDC’s message. Now, with that in mind, can we still trust the CDC, in your opinion?

Jacob Uskavitch: Under normal times, I think that answer would be a robust yes. Right now, I think it really depends on who is saying it and what is being said. Director Redfield, if I’m not pronouncing his last name correctly, I think is actually doing a decent job trying to get the message out there. I think he is under an immense amount of political pressure, and so are other workers at the CDC. I think Director Hahn at the FDA is actually trying to do a good job of making sure that the process is followed, so, therefore, a vaccine is safe and effective for use.

I think it depends on what exactly is being said and who is saying it for us to make a determination. But the messaging bandwidth of public health definitely needs to be out there, because there is misinformation being spread.

Kevin Pho: Now, you’re a third-year medical student, and you’re much closer to social media than a lot of public health officials and a lot of clinicians. What are some things that medical students can do to promote reputable health information on social media channels?

Jacob Uskavitch: You know, being in a younger generation, having social media, having grown up with that, just like you said, we’re definitely closer to what’s happening on social media. I think we need to take what’s happening on social media and bring it into the real world. So we’re reading a lot of information on the internet, seeing how people interact, seeing what people are sharing. But in the instance, medical students do a lot of interacting with patients, especially at teaching hospitals. We talk to the patient, and then we present to our attending, and then we come back with the attending.

So I think we need to definitely learn what is occurring on social media and have those conversations with patients, because patients are on social media just as much as, you know, health care workers, right? So if we see something that’s wrong, we definitely need to know about what’s happening on social media, because we can correct that in a patient care visit.

Kevin Pho: Now, if you see misinformation on a social media channel like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, what is your recommendation, not only for medical students but for clinicians as a whole? What do you recommend that we do when we see that?

Jacob Uskavitch: Personally, for me, I think social media platforms have a huge responsibility for what’s being shared on the platforms. Especially if it’s very egregious misinformation, they should have a disclaimer or remove the content. I mean, I don’t work for any social media company, so that’s up to them to decide what is acceptable to be posted or what is acceptable to have a disclaimer.

I have reported some of the tweets that have been very egregious, talking about, you know, maybe that COVID-19 doesn’t actually kill anybody. Or, well, recently the CDC released a report of how many people have died from COVID-19, and a lot of people read the 6 percent of people who didn’t have any other conditions as the true number. And so that’s definitely very egregious, that people believe that only, like, 6 percent of the actual deaths are actually because of COVID-19. But that’s something that should be corrected on social media platforms.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Jacob Uskavitch. He’s a medical student, and he wrote the KevinMD article “COVID-19 misinformation is a public health crisis.” Jacob, how has the pandemic affected your medical education thus far?

Jacob Uskavitch: Yeah. So in February, early March, I was actually expected to start my third-year clerkships, and we started out maybe a week or two. And then, with COVID having progressed to being kind of widespread in America, our school and a lot of schools across the country decided to pull medical students out of the clerkships, out of the hospitals, and go to more online learning. And for me, at my school, that was about four months of online courses, and it definitely helped me learn how to be a better physician. During that time, I took a public health course, I took a research course, and it definitely made me think critically about what’s going on in the nation.

And then in August, I returned to the clerkships, and it was definitely something that I was concerned about with my patients. Some of the patients, I definitely asked, you know, how is their home life? How are they handling, you know, living during a pandemic? Because I think the mental aspect of this pandemic is something that we should talk about in a health care setting with patients.

Kevin Pho: Sure. And over the last few months, is there anything that you’ve learned that you could pass on to your fellow medical students who may be listening to this podcast?

Jacob Uskavitch: I think a message to my fellow medical students is, you know, take this time to definitely learn from your patients and learn about what’s going on. It’s a unique experience having to learn medical education during a pandemic, and so we are in unique circumstances. We could be better equipped as physicians to handle these conversations early on in our career.

I think a lot of the things that we learn in medical school are probably best learned through experience, and we as medical students do spend a lot of time with patients in a visit. So us, you know, having these conversations with patients is definitely critical to our education, and we should take advantage of that.

Kevin Pho: Sure. And my final question: Do you have a take-home message that you want to share with the KevinMD audience?

Jacob Uskavitch: I think we definitely need to watch and listen specifically to the people in our health care community. The biggest take-home message I want to say is that when the process of a rigorous scientific protocol is followed, when it comes to vaccines, you know, vaccines are safe and effective. And for us as health care workers to be our best advocates, we need to know that the vaccines are safe and effective. We need to be able to communicate to our patients, you know, what are the pros and what are the cons. And that’s the way we really build trust with our patients.

Kevin Pho: Jacob, thank you so much for sharing your insights, and thanks again for being on the show.

Jacob Uskavitch: Thank you so much for inviting me.

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