Dr. Yenting Chen is a board certified emergency medicine doctor practicing at the Alta Bates Top Medical Center emergency situation departments in Berkeley and Oakland, California. In this viewpoint piece, he discusses the value of empathy when tackling false information during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just recently, many of my peers in the healthcare and science occupations have found themselves on a new, unforeseen frontline in the war versus COVID-19: the battle versus extensive medical science misinformation on social networks.
It is very important for us to engage empathetically if we select to participate in this conversation, although this is particularly challenging for those of us who have actually spent our entire professions adhering to the standards of evidence-based medicine.
When we see misinformation dispersing online, whether it remain in the kind of conspiracy theories or approval of bad science, it is tempting for us to react in anger or with ridicule.
Please keep in mind that the vast bulk of our family and friends have not gone through training in examining medical research study. Ideas such as choice bias and analytical power analysis, which are instantly evident to us, may be completely foreign to others.
They do not deserve our contempt for existing with deceptive information, and condescension is not valuable in changing opinions.
Mentally charged problems greatly improve confirmation predisposition and attitude polarization. In our generation, we have actually experienced few times as emotionally charged as the crisis we are currently fighting. Everyone is experiencing world occasions much more highly through the filters of their individual values and beliefs.
Social network has actually increased our particular filter bubbles to a level that society has actually never ever seen before. Derisive or dismissive counterclaims do not serve well in this environment, as they just act to increase the emoti