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Doctor explains why he checks a dead patient's Facebook before notifying their parents

Louis M. Profeta MD explains why he looks at the social media accounts of dead patients before talking their parents.

Photo from Tedx Talk on YouTube.

He checks on your Facebook page.

Losing a loved one is easily the worst moment you'll face in your life. But it can also affect the doctors who have to break it to a patient's friends and family. Louis M. Profeta MD, an Emergency Physician at St. Vincent Emergency Physicians in Indianapolis, Indiana, recently took to LinkedIn to share the reason he looks at a patient's Facebook page before telling their parents they've passed.

The post, titled "I'll Look at Your Facebook Profile Before I Tell Your Mother You're Dead," has attracted thousands of likes and comments.

"It kind of keeps me human," Profeta starts. "You see, I'm about to change their lives — your mom and dad, that is. In about five minutes, they will never be the same, they will never be happy again."

"Right now, to be honest, you're just a nameless dead body that feels like a wet bag of newspapers that we have been pounding on, sticking IV lines and tubes and needles in, trying desperately to save you. There's no motion, no life, nothing to tell me you once had dreams or aspirations. I owe it to them to learn just a bit about you before I go in."

"Because right now... all I am is mad at you, for what you did to yourself and what you are about to do to them. I know nothing about you. I owe it to your mom to peek inside of your once-living world.”

Dr. Louis Profeta, health, death, doctors

Dr. Profeta talks his experience with the death of a patient.

Photo from Tedx Talk on YouTube.

Profeta explains that the death of a patient makes him angry:

"Maybe you were texting instead of watching the road, or you were drunk when you should have Ubered. Perhaps you snorted heroin or Xanax for the first time or a line of coke, tried meth or popped a Vicodin at the campus party and did a couple shots.”

"Maybe you just rode your bike without a helmet or didn't heed your parents' warning when they asked you not to hang out with that 'friend,' or to be more cautious when coming to a four-way stop. Maybe you just gave up."

"Maybe it was just your time, but chances are... it wasn't."

personalization, trauma, mental health, social media

The facebook app.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Profeta goes on to explain why he checks a patient's Facebook page:

"So I pick up your faded picture of your driver's license and click on my iPhone, flip to Facebook and search your name. Chances are we'll have one mutual friend somewhere. I know a lot of people.”

"I see you wearing the same necklace and earrings that now sit in a specimen cup on the counter, the same ball cap or jacket that has been split open with trauma scissors and pulled under the backboard, the lining stained with blood. Looks like you were wearing it to the U2 concert. I heard it was great."

"I see your smile, how it should be, the color of eyes when they are filled with life, your time on the beach, blowing out candles, Christmas at Grandma's; oh you have a Maltese, too. I see that. I see you standing with your mom and dad in front of the sign to your college. Good, I'll know exactly who they are when I walk into the room. It makes it that much easier for me, one less question I need to ask.”

"You're kind of lucky that you don't have to see it. Dad screaming your name over and over, mom pulling her hair out, curled up on the floor with her hand over her head as if she's trying to protect herself from unseen blows.”

"I check your Facebook page before I tell them you're dead because it reminds me that I am talking about a person, someone they love — it quiets the voice in my head that is screaming at you right now shouting: 'You mother f--ker, how could you do this to them, to people you are supposed to love!'"

This article originally appeared on June 5, 2019

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Mom shares 'secret' note she slipped to the pediatrician about daughter's weight

"Trying something new at the pediatrician will report back how it goes."

via General.Caronobi/TikTok

Mother shares note she gave to her daughter's pediatrician.

There is a growing trend online and in therapists' offices that is a backlash against the toxic positivity of the body positivity movement: body neutrality. This new perspective takes a neutral view of our bodies and encourages people to stop saying they are "good" or "bad," "ugly," or "gorgeous," but that they just are.

"Body neutrality means taking a neutral perspective towards your body, meaning that you do not have to cultivate a love for your body or feel that you have to love your body every day. You may not always love your body, but you may still live happily and appreciate everything your body can do,” Very Well Mind writes.

Mother Caroline Hardin shared a great example of body neutrality on TikTok recently. In a post that received over 100,000 views, She shared a note she secretly handed to her daughter’s pediatrician at a recent appointment.

"Trying something new at the pediatrician will report back how it goes," Caroline began in her video before revealing a handwritten note she gave to the doctor.

Don’t judge my handwriting i was writing in the car on top of a captain underpants book lol #bodyneutrality #bodypositiveparenting

@general.caronobi

Don’t judge my handwriting i was writing in the car on top of a captain underpants book lol #bodyneutrality #bodypositiveparenting

The note reads:

"Doctor. When discussing my child's weight and/or BMI, please refrain from using qualitative words like 'good' or 'bad.' We have managed so far to keep a body-neutral and body-positive environment for her childhood, and I appreciate your cooperation in preserving that for as long as we can."

The unfortunate underlying message to the note is that Caroline’s daughter will one day have to exist in a world where her body is scrutinized. Every opportunity the mom has to delay that eventuality is a positive step for her development.

In a subsequent video, Caroline noted that the visit to the doctor went off perfectly.

Replying to @Caroline we will continue to take it one year at a time but we made it through this year’s checkup unscathed! #bodyneutrality #bodypositiveparenting

@general.caronobi

Replying to @Caroline we will continue to take it one year at a time but we made it through this year’s checkup unscathed! #bodyneutrality #bodypositiveparenting

"We made it back home, and I'm happy to report that it went really well. The nurse made no comment when she was weighing my kid," Caroline recalled. When the pediatrician popped in, she had a growth curve without any numbers that she was able to show to Caroline and her daughter. The doctor even used an age-appropriate way of describing the daughter’s health. “Your body is growing exactly how it wants to grow. Hooray!" she said.

"There were no discussions about restricting sugar or restrictions at all,” Caroline added. “So, my kids' takeaway was that the doctor noticed her nail polish and that she got to tell her she has 8 friends."

The video received much praise from women who wished they could have enjoyed a body-neutral childhood. "You legit just healed some of my soul. Thank you for this!!!" katmc52384 wrote in the comments. “Looovvveee this. Couldn’t figure out how to head it off without embarrassing my kid. Thank you!!” Carter added.

Caroline is happy that she found a way to take her daughter to the doctor without introducing her to the pain of body stigmatization. She also shared a way for parents everywhere to address a tricky situation without their children being alerted to our culture’s toxic perceptions of bodies and beauty.

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Former NICU baby graduates medical school, intends to become NICU doctor

He plans to start a pediatrics residency specializing in infant care.

Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash

A former NICU baby is going to become a NICU doctor.

Marcus Mosley was born in 1995 at just 26 weeks gestation, meaning he spent his first few months of life in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Now, 27 years later, Mosley has graduated medical school with the intention of specializing in the same kind of medicine that saved his life. He recently graduated from the CUNY School of Medicine at The City College of New York. His journey from being a patient to being a doctor in the NICU is well underway and the future is looking bright.

"It was very frightening when he was born and they told me that he was in the NICU," Mosley's mother, Pauline Mosley told "Good Morning America." "The doctors told me, they just kept giving me all these different percentages of very slim chance of him being normal, like less than 10% chance. They kept saying 90%, he might not be able to see. Eighty to 90%, he would have developmental delays. They didn't know."

While it's true that being born premature (before 37 weeks gestation) can lead to developmental delays and health problems that range from minor to severe, it's hard for doctors to predict that at the outset. The effects of being born premature and the care received aren't always known until the child gets older, but there is evidence that shows that Black babies are more likely to receive subpar NICU care.

A review of 41 studies that was released in 2019 found that Black preterm babies are the most vulnerable. Typically, hospitals with a higher amount of Black preemies had fewer nurses and lower-quality care compared to hospitals with a smaller amount of Black babies. Additionally, evidence showed that "minority-serving" NICUs had higher death rates. Lack of resources and understaffing at hospitals that serve communities of minorities is part of the problem.

Black parents have also talked about a lack of support as their babies leave the NICU. Some of the studies showed that Black parents were less likely to get referrals for follow-up care for their preemies. These parents also reported feeling less satisfied with their experiences, likely for the reasons mentioned above. If you're not feeling supported, then you're certainly not going to have a good experience.

Thankfully for the Mosley family, Marcus didn't suffer from any long-term health problems. But a return to the NICU when he was 13 set his life on its current trajectory. During the visit to the Westchester Medical Center, he met Dr. Edmund LaGamma, the chief of neonatology at Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center. A relationship was forged between the two that would lead Mosley to make one of the most important discoveries of his life.

"He had called and said that he was a former patient of the Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Center and he was in high school and wanted to know if he could do a shadowing program over the summer," LaGamma told "Good Morning America."

LaGamma explained that in the time since Mosley had been a patient, "a lot of advances had been made," and he invited the young man to come join the team for rounds. Shadowing Dr. LaGamma and the team left quite the impression on Mosley.

"That is what really piqued my interest and then solidified my interest in wanting to go into medicine," Mosley explained.

After that summer of shadowing, LaGamma began to act as a mentor to Mosley, especially when he enrolled in the accelerated B.A/M.D. program at City College, which happens to be LaGamma's alma mater. Mosley is gearing up to begin his pediatrics residency at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital.

"I'm really excited and looking forward to starting residency and to be able to take care of patients now," Mosley said. "I'll be responsible for patients and involved in patient care and treating families."

And his mentor thinks that he is just the right person for such a special and important kind of job. "I think he has that personality which comes across as engaging and inviting so that he'll do well as a pediatrician," LaGamma said, adding that he's already offering Mosley a fellowship position in the future.

It's beautiful to see how a formative part of your life can lead you down a specific life path.

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Global health equity champion Paul Farmer was a great doctor, but an even better human being

PBS News Hour/YouTube

The world bids a sad farewell to Dr. Paul Farmer, champion of global health equity.

You can often tell a lot about a person's life by how the world responds to their death. Over the weekend, when I started seeing a flood of social media messages from healthcare professionals that included words like "devastated" and "gutted," it was clear that someone of influence in the medical world had passed. I'm not in healthcare, but even I recognized Dr. Paul Farmer's name, largely from this quote of his:

"The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong in the world."

After spending decades working and living in various countries around the world, making sure people in underdeveloped nations had access to quality healthcare, Dr. Farmer passed away from an acute cardiac event in his sleep in Rwanda at age 62. His death was like a seismic event in the field of global health, launching a tsunami of grief and remembrance felt around the world, from heads of state who met with him to fellow physicians who worked with him to individuals whose lives he saved.

"It is hard to find the words to express the sad news of the passing of Paul Farmer—the person, the Doctor, the philanthropist. He combined many things hard to find in one person," wrote Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda.

Farmer was physician, a professor, an anthropologist and a fierce advocate for the world's poor. In 1987, he cofounded Partners in Health, one of the world's leading global health and social justice organizations dedicated to bringing high-quality healthcare to those who need it most. Farmer's philosophy was straightforward: The fact that poor people die of illness we have effective treatments for is unacceptable. Farmer's life's work was a testament to his belief that where you live and how much money you have should not determine your right to healthcare.

But Farmer's advocacy work was also much more personal than that. He didn't preach about global equity from atop an ivory tower; he worked on the ground, at the grassroots level, doing hands-on medical care in some of the poorest parts of the world.

Much of Farmer's work involved getting effective AIDS treatments to patients in Haiti and Rwanda in the face of pushback from those who felt it was too expensive or that cultural differences would get in the way. Farmer refused to accept inequity and did everything he could to alleviate it.

“Human rights violations are not accidents; they are not random in distribution or effect," he wrote in "Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor." "Rights violations are, rather, symptoms of deeper pathologies of power and are linked intimately to the social conditions that so often determine who will suffer abuse and who will be shielded from harm.”

He was uncompromising in his belief that every human being, regardless of circumstances, should have access to the best healthcare humanity has to offer. Being born into or living in poverty does not give anyone less of a right to health, and if we have effective treatments for illness and disease, everyone should have access to them.

He touched countless lives—those he treated and those he accompanied in the field of service. Often it was people in the medical field he trained with, but he even inspired people outside of healthcare to use their privilege and know-how to better the lives of others.

When you pass away and everyone who met you has only the most glowing things to say about you, you know you've lived a good life. The world has lost not only a great doctor, but a champion of global health equity who serves as an example to us all.

"His vision for the world will live on through Partners in Health," Sheila Davis, Partners in Health CEO, wrote in a statement. "Paul taught all those around him the power of accompaniment, love for one another, and solidarity. Our deepest sympathies are with his family.”

Watch PBS News Hour's remembrance of Dr. Farmer below, and for more details of his extraordinary work, I highly recommend Tracy Kidder's profile of him in The New Yorker. The man was truly a legend of a human being in all the best ways possible.

Rest in peace, Dr. Farmer. Thanks for showing us how it's done.

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