PoopD brought something to my attention this past weekend going on in the medical profession and asked my opinion. I am a retired medical doctor no longer working the front lines. Medical providers are now being encouraged to be civic minded and to bring up voter registration in their clinical practice and are being given tools to increase voter registration including use of an electronic medical charting system used throughout the Columbus, Ohio area – Mychart. I spent 4 years in medical school and 5 years in residency training and voter registration and getting out the vote were NEVER part of the practical skills teaching agenda. I was busy learning how to make the correct diagnosis in a timely manner and to come up with the most efficacious, least side-effect producing, treatment plan. I have included a link below to the organization behind this initiative – Vot-ER. What I found most disturbing was the push for “emergency ballots” for hospitalized patients. I don’t know about you, but if I were sick enough to be admitted to the hospital in the week or two leading up to the 2024 election, I would hope that the ONLY thing the hospital staff was working on was my complete and rapid recovery with well thought out planning for an expeditious boot out the door. I would not want a social worker or other health care team members devoting time working on my absentee ballot status. I would need my health care team working on my medical and discharge plan and setting up any health care services or devices inclusive of any in-house training I would need for a successful discharge (i.e. no bounce back to the hospital within 30 days). I would suggest my medical peers stay focused and stick to the original patient care mission statement. Ballot harvesting was not originally part of the plan and this political creep into medical practice, under the guise of being a non-partisan equity equalizer, is shameful.
doctordeplorablemf