This week, PW’s editor-in-chief, Dr. Linda Girgis, shares her thoughts on the deadly shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Dr. Girgis: I was shocked. I think everybody was shocked. We may not agree with his policies, but still, something like that should not happen. It definitely highlights the violence in the healthcare field. There’s been violence against doctors in the past, and if somebody can walk up to somebody in daylight and just shoot them in the street like that, surely it can happen to anybody.
This problem isn’t new. It’s been going on for years. At the practice level, it’s very hard to fight against it. That’s why I think physicians need to come together and get our organizations to advocate and work on our behalf—our medical organizations like the American Medical Association and some of the other large organizations. I think as an individual physician, it’s very hard to change anything.
I don’t think it’s going to have much of an effect. There’s too much money being made by these large organizations that I don’t think it’s going to push them necessarily to make any substantial changes at this point. But I think it’s very interesting how people automatically jumped to the conclusion it was done because something was denied, or it has to do with the insurance coverage. I think that speaks to how broken our healthcare system is.
I hope this is a one-off. I hope people take more nonviolent means to advocate for what they need.
Thanks for listening. Stay tuned for next week’s episode. To hear more, follow PeerPOV: The Pulse on Medicine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.
This transcript has been edited for readability.
