At lunch on September 10, 2025, I opened Instagram for a palate cleanser: cute dog videos, life hack reels, something sweet and uplifting. Instead, I ran into a video and headline I wanted to dismiss as a deepfake. It was graphic and disorienting and, for a few seconds, I tried to bargain with reality: This cannot be real, and if it is, how is it on my phone? Would it not have been taken down for violating platform rules against graphic violence? But it was real. Charlie Kirk had been shot while speaking at Utah Valley University at 12:20 p.m., his wife and two young children in attendance, only ten feet away. He did not survive. My chest dropped. That afternoon, I continued to see patients, but the day moved by in a blur. While I do not share many of his views, I do share the belief that as humans, we resolve differences with words, not violence, not bullets.

The federal response underscored the gravity: A White House proclamation ordered U.S. flags to half-staff through September 14. Authorities released investigative materials; by week’s end, a 22-year-old suspect was in custody, while Utah’s governor cautioned that motive remained under investigation.

What hit almost as hard as the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination were some reactions: A handful of people in positions of public trust, including in health care and education, celebrated his death and called it “justified.” When a doctor posts, “The people who did this are great and I love them and they should keep doing it forever.” That is not “edgy.” It is a breach of the healer’s oath.

Among our country’s “healers” who crossed that line are the aforementioned neurologist at the University of Miami, who was terminated after posting on Instagram, framing the killing as justified and asking for the violence to continue; in Virginia, Riverside Walter Reed Hospital dismissed a contract anesthesiologist over “highly inappropriate” comments supporting violence against a public figure (no name released). In Georgia, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta fired an employee for making inappropriate social media comments about Charlie Kirk (no name released).

The First Amendment restrains government punishment for speech. It does not immunize professionals from professional consequences, especially in high-trust roles. Medicine is not merely about avoiding harm; it is about safeguarding trust in conditions where patients and the public are vulnerable and dependent.

In plain terms, Medicine requires impartial care: Patients must know we will treat them regardless of political affiliation, ideology, religion, or affiliation. When a clinician publicly applauds a political assassination it signals that some lives count less or not at all which is a foreseeable threat to safety. Medicine also demands respect for all individuals, from Hippocrates to the AMA Code, our license rests on honoring all human life and dignity. Endorsing lethal violence breaks that foundation. Finally, clinicians must model moral restraint, in speech and in action. The public entrusts us with extraordinary power (intimate access, prescribing authority, clinical discretion) in exchange for rising above political bloodsport. When providers model dehumanization, it multiplies. Cheering a killing is hate speech, it is outside professional bounds; it poisons public trust not only in the individual provider but also in the institutions they represent.

Some will insist, “My personal account is my business.” In ordinary jobs, maybe. In medicine, education, law enforcement, and other trust-heavy roles, public endorsement of violence is incompatible with the duty of care.

Zero tolerance is not “cancel culture.” It is patient safety. Keep care safe; keep hate out.

What responsible institutions must do, every time:

Draw hard lines. No posts that praise or justify violence, against anyone. Because it endangers patient trust, any praise or justification of violence is disciplinable: removal from duty, termination, and when appropriate, board notification.

Say it out loud. Describe the conduct, identify the violated provision, and restate the duty of care and professional ethics.

Sync with licensure. Boards and societies should state plainly that endorsing real-world violence is unprofessional conduct.

Teach digital professionalism. Not a gag order, education in foreseeable harm and digital permanence.

Protect dissent. Welcome debate; bar dehumanization. Make space where clinicians can argue policy without turning colleagues into enemies.

History shows what follows when some lives stop counting, the acid of dehumanization corrodes everything it touches.

Start here: In medicine, we do not celebrate death, on shift or off, not in the hospital or clinic and not on our feeds.

Carrie Friedman is a dual board-certified psychiatric and family nurse practitioner and the founder of Brain Garden Psychiatry in California. She integrates evidence-based psychopharmacology with functional and integrative psychiatry, emphasizing root-cause approaches that connect neuro-nutrition and gut–brain science, metabolic psychiatry, immunology, endocrinology, and mind–body lifestyle medicine. Carrie’s clinical focus bridges conventional psychiatry with holistic strategies to support mental health through nutrition, physiology, and sustainable lifestyle interventions. Her professional writing explores topics such as functional medicine, autism, provider well-being, and medical ethics.