Becker's Hospital Review

73 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY Oregon physician who spread COVID-19 misinformation gets license revoked By Hannah Mitchell A physician from Oregon had his medical license revoked and was fined $10,000 for spreading COVID-19 misinformation and refusing to wear a mask in his medical practice. Six details: 1. Steven Arthur LaTulippe, MD, had his license revoked for "unprofessional conduct, repeated neg- ligence in the practice of medicine and gross negli- gence in the practice of medicine," according to the Oregon Medical Board. The board suspended his li- cense in December and officially revoked it Sept. 2. 2. An investigation by the board found that Mr. LaTulippe engaged in 22 instances of negligence in the practice of medicine, five instances of gross negli- gence in the practice of medicine and eight instances of unprofessional or dishonest conduct. 3. At Mr. LaTulippe's family practice at South View Medical Arts in Dallas, Ore., he asked his receptionist to screen patients based on their facial expressions instead of asking them if they have been in close con- tact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19 or someone who displayed symptoms, according to the board. 4. Mr. LaTulippe and his wife, who ran the clinic with him, allegedly didn't wear masks from March 2020 to December 2020. According to the board, he also told older adults and children that wearing a mask was very dangerous for them because it causes or contributes to multiple serious health conditions, such as strokes, carbon dioxide poisoning and col- lapsed lungs. The CDC has advocated wearing masks to combat COVID-19 and said mask-wearing doesn't increase carbon dioxide levels. 5. Patients were not required to wear masks unless they were coughing or ill, the investigation deter- mined. Patients who entered the clinic wearing a mask were asked to remove their masks, the board said. 6. Investigators asked Mr. LaTulippe if he planned to follow COVID-19 protocols, to which he said, "No," according to the board. "In a choice between losing his medical license versus wearing a mask in his clinic and requiring his patients and staff to wear a mask in his clinic, he will, 'choose to sacrifice my medical license with no hesitation,'" the board said. n Viewpoint: Mocking the unvaccinated dead doesn't save anyone By Gabrielle Masson T he shame and contempt that shadows some discourse surrounding COVID-19 deaths among unvaccinated Americans isn't helping anyone, wrote Elizabeth Bruenig of The Atlantic. In the Sept. 2 opinion piece, Ms. Bruenig wrote that this method of persuasion — assuming the unvaccinated simply don't real- ize that COVID-19 can be fatal and they could use some fright- ening reminders — seems futile. e traditional methods of persuasion, where great value is placed on rhetoric that assumes listeners' basic goodwill, have been deemed useless, and lower forms — insults, scolding, intra-group memeing — seem to be all that's le, she wrote. In contrast, good-faith persuasion is a matter of discipline and not something that comes naturally, according to Ms. Bruenig. It would require examining what the unvaccinated say about their hesitancy by inhabiting their point of view honestly and seriously. "To persuade someone to do something, you have to present them with information that is persuasive to them, not strictly with infor- mation that's persuasive to you," Ms. Bruenig wrote. Vaccinated individuals are already convinced that the vaccine significantly improves their odds of avoiding the worst of COVID-19 — the shot sells itself. Persuading someone with the same logic is only successful when talking to someone who would've already been persuaded in the first place. A Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey asked unvaccinated Americans about their reasons for putting off or refusing vaccina- tion and allowed them to select multiple options. More than half of respondents listed potential side effects as a major concern. Nearly 40 percent said they don't trust the vaccines; a similar proportion want to wait and see whether they're safe. A third said they don't trust the government, while just less than a quarter don't believe they personally need a vaccine. Aer the 22 percent who aren't sure the vaccines are actually protective are another 17 percent who don't view COVID-19 as a major threat. "What strikes me about the responses of the unvaccinated is that there does seem to be significant willingness to consider vaccina- tion," Ms. Bruenig wrote. "at means there's still openness — to the right kind of persuasion." at requires talking with someone who's chosen not to be vacci- nated, which is exactly what Ms. Bruenig did. She reached out to some of her unvaccinated family members, talking openly about ethical implications and safety concerns, noting that she wants her family to be alright. "And I believe — but cannot prove — that wanting that for some- one is more persuasive, somehow, than the darker, harder political emotions that dominate our discourse now," she concluded. n

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