The Present Illness

Mayo Med Student + ICE at the Airport

• Alyssa Burgart & Arghavan Salles • Season 1 • Episode 26

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Mayo medical student’s videos go viral in the bad way; medical misogyny; Match Day memories; ICE at the airports; husbands learn about pelvic exams

Mayo Medical Student:

ICE in America's Airports:

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

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Credits

  • Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
  • Editing by Alyssa Burgart
  • Theme Music by Joseph Uphoff
  • Social Media by Arghavan Salles
SPEAKER_02

Even if a person just makes one or two inappropriate social media videos, in this type of inappropriate, like where you're making fun of patients, your healthcare professional making fun of patients and expressing misogynistic views, that suggests really bad judgment. And it's very likely that that bad judgment extends well beyond making and posting two social media videos. Hey there, fellow nerds. Welcome back to another episode of The Present Illness, the podcast where two physicians try to make sense of a world that is a little febrile and definitely underdiagnosed. I'm Arga Von Solas, a surgeon scientist and your friendly neighborhood doom scroller and residents.

SPEAKER_01

And I'm Alyssa Burgaard, an anesthesiologist and bioethicist who tracks news and health a lot like your EKGs, full of spikes and surprises. The present illness is where we dig into public health, politics, culture, and ethics with a scalpel in one hand and a meme in the other.

SPEAKER_02

Huge thanks to everyone who's listening. Um, with extra love as always to those who subscribe or follow us on the various platforms, and a warm welcome to anyone who just stumbled in from match day. Match day is such a big day in medicine. It's a huge day. I mean, I still remember it. I'm sure you still remember how it went for you. What do you remember about your match day? I remember multiple things. So I remember um in the odd so the building where we had match day, by the way, it no longer exists. At the time, um there was a building there and now it's grass uh on our medical school campus. But um I remember the building. I remember being in the it was in the lobby of that building that they had match day activities. And I remember um I had matched into surgery at the same institution, and one of the surgery residents came over and you know, congratulated me. That was really lovely. Um, and I remember Stanford did at the time, I don't know if they still do, but they had a dinner for people for graduating students and their families. So my mom and I went to whatever dinner. Um, and it was just really nice. Oh, I want an iPod too. Actually, I just remembered that. They had like some sort of drawing for, I mean, at the time we had iPods, you know, because it was Do you want to explain what an iPod is? An iPod is like an iPhone, except it only has the iPod part of the iPhone. It's only for music. And so I uh I won this like fancy iPod. Like it was had a lot of storage. It was like a big deal. I don't remember much more than that because I gave it away shortly thereafter because I didn't really need it. So I don't really remember too much about it, but I remember it was like expensive and they gave they just randomly gave away like two or three, and somehow I won one anyway. So, you know, that those are the things that I remember from match day. Um, I personally, to the extent that it matters to anybody, matched at my fourth ranked place, which is generally not considered a success.

SPEAKER_01

Um interesting.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But also, like it's kind of funny when Stanford's your fourth option.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I think what it says a lot about is my inability to read cues from the programs that I was interviewing at and my poor playing of the game. I was delighted to have matched at Stanford and I'm really glad that it worked out that way. But at the time, um, you know, I had been here for med school and wanted to theoretically maybe try something else. But I think I just really did not interview as well as I had hoped or or whatever. I mean, something happened or the communication after the interviews, whatever, you know, it's a silly game. And I just didn't play the game well. And in the end, I'm really lucky that Stanford ranked me high enough to match. Because if they hadn't, then I mean, who knows? I might have tumbled down through my rankings or not match. So, you know. Anyway, that's what I remember. What do you remember for match day?

SPEAKER_01

Well, uh, I was very pregnant when uh by the time match day came around. I uh match day is always kind of mid-March, and my first baby was due uh in June. And I was like, oh my God, all right, Sierra wants to be on the podcast, so we gotta here you go. For all the viewers on YouTube, you can enjoy this little tiny dog who is like, Oh, you're talking about a baby? Hold me like a baby. Um so I I I did I so I I attended Loyola University of Chicago, which I had a great medical education there. Um, I didn't I loved Chicago for a time, but I didn't want to live there forever. And so I actually didn't really want to stay there, but I because I was pregnant, my uh partner and I really looked through all the places I interviewed and like we were gonna have to move. Either I was gonna have to move, like when I was about to deliver a baby to then find a new OB and find a new place to get care, or I was gonna need to stay at a program in Chicago or try to try to match at one of the other programs in Chicago. Um and then I would at least know where the bathrooms were. So I actually ended up ranking uh Loyola first for my match. It it was one of those things where I there was I interviewed at some other places, I actually interviewed at some places in California that I really, I really wanted to come home to California. But I was like, it is just not I just can't move difficult. Yeah, I can't move while I'm about to have a baby. And um, which I think was the right choice for lots of reasons. Um so I ended up matching there and um I uh a huge support for me in medical school was that I joined the local, like there was a knitting store in our town, and so I joined the, I would go to the knitting club and like that was the one thing I did besides study and like hang out with my husband was go knitting on Wednesday nights at this place called um it was it was called I was about to just say the wrong place. Chicks with sticks. It was called Chicks with Sticks, and it was owned by these lovely women in Forest Park, Illinois. Um, and I made so many good friends there. And all of my knitting friends actually showed up to match day, which was amazing. So they were all there. They were thrilled that I matched it, Loyola, which meant I was gonna stay in the knitting group. Um, I'm still friends with all those people. And uh yeah, so it was like I I I remember I had, you know, when you're pregnant, you don't own that many clothes that fit. And so like I had a specific dress that actually fit me that I chose to wear. Um anyway. And then my kid was born early. So she was supposed to be uh sorry, they were supposed to be born after uh after I graduated from medical school, but they were born early. So I actually carried my baby across the stage. Uh they were two days old, I think, when I graduated. So it was a raucous time in life.

SPEAKER_02

That's that's an awesome story, though. Um I do agree. It seems like it was wise to stay given the timing of things. So well done, you.

SPEAKER_01

Well done, past you on good decision making. Thank you. Thank you. Um, and I did eventually, I there's things I miss about Chicago, but I was also very happy to uh come to Stanford for my for my pediatric anesthesia training. That was great. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I just thought, in case I'm assuming most of our listeners know what match day is, but in case anyone's listening is like, what even are you talking about? Match day is the day that medical students across the country find out where they're going to do their residency. And um, in something that makes absolutely no sense, it's a computer algorithm that determines where people go. And so that's why it's such a big deal, because you find out where you're going to spend the next three, four, five, seven years of your life in a decision that you only somewhat had input into. So anyway, it's a really stressful time for medical students. And um, you know, most people match, some people don't match, meaning that they don't have a job to go to starting in June and they have to scramble for that. So it's just which high tech used to be called the scramble and now it's called soap. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Now I'll I'll hear the kids talk about soaping.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, yes. And um I still call it scrambling, but I mean it'll always be a scramble to me. Yeah. Um anyway, so so yeah, congrats to everyone who had a successful match. And for those who didn't, that's not the end of your journey. And there are so many things that can still happen for you and that will give you a path to the career that you want.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I I have every year I think about some of the people I know who did not match, who were some of the most brilliant people I had ever met. So it's also like so many reasons why people don't match. Like it's such a weird game. It's such a weird medicine's weird, medical culture is weird, which is why we have a podcast to talk about. Because it's weird. Indeed, it is. Um, well, listen, regardless of your match status, we are glad you are here. Um, as a note to new listeners, we oftentimes talk about topics that can be kind of intense, they can be a lot. Um, so you may not want to listen with your little ones. And if you need to take a break from this one, we totally get it. Absolutely. Um, shall we get into our first topic for today? Well, Argivon, you know what I'm wondering? Because I know you are online. I know for a fact that the two of us have been inundated with some doctors that are on the internet who I'm gonna be honest, probably shouldn't be on the internet.

SPEAKER_02

Yep, yep, absolutely. Um, I am guessing you're talking about at least that medical student. I mean, there's multiple examples, to be fair. This is not the only person, but there is a medical student who um has gotten a lot of the worst kind of attention for their posts in the recent few weeks.

SPEAKER_01

I would say has has earned the worst kind of attention. Um, so the person that, you know, neither of us, neither of us knows this person. All we know about them is what is online. We've seen their videos. Um, and there's a student who supposedly goes to or went to Mayo's medical school, which is called the Alex School of Medicine. And what we understand from at least what reporting there has been, uh, supposedly this person was hoping to match into psychiatry. And apparently this person had a really big following. Um, my algorithm had not shown me his content, but I'm guessing that there are good reasons that the algorithm, the gods of the algorithm, knew that he was not for me. And unfortunately, he made several videos which ended up going viral because they specifically were incredibly misogynistic. And in particular, he had two videos that I'll talk about today. And one of them, he is I don't know, pretending that he's making the video from the perspective of a woman's groin. Um, and as though he is doing a speculum exam or some other kind of an exam and makes some very disparaging comments about women's anatomy and about uh the experience of uh examining a person who has a vagina and was horrible. And the the words that that he used and the tone that was used was incredibly dismissive of the idea that of any patient who would ever want to go see somebody for an already uncomfortable exam.

SPEAKER_02

Wasn't it I it's been a minute since I watched that video, but there was a video I saw where he was talking about inserting a fully catheter. Is that this one or is that a different one? That was a nurse. No, no, there's that too. But there's one that Nick made about inserting a fully catheter because he's talking about basically not being able to do it because there's it's very vague. It's using the lyrics of a song, but or or not a song, a trending audio, but it makes it sound like he can't find the urethra because there's excess tissue or whatever, which to be clear, like every vulva is normal. Um, that's not a thing, but that's what was portrayed in that video. I don't know if that's the same one or a different one.

SPEAKER_01

Honestly, there were multiple videos, so I I I will he's pulled them down. There's certainly many other ones that are that are online. Um and then the other video that ended up garnering a lot of attention was a video where he talked about um, you know, basically, girl, you're so crazy, they write books about you, and held up the DSM5, which is the manual that is used in psychiatry to diagnose people with mental health disorders. And so, again, this very casual and misogynistic way of basically saying women are crazy, which I mean, gosh, a tried and true idea that men does.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no one's ever said that before. Women are crazy. There was another one that I saw, and and I know you're right, he's got many videos, and I certainly haven't seen all of them, and the algorithm has spared me that as well. But there was another one that was about yeast infections, um, and was another like some kind of trending audio or sound. And he I think the thing that got to me was the look on his face, like just the disgust um that you can say he was acting consistent with whatever the audio was, but to have that reaction about a condition that affects women patients is offensive and disrespectful and very harmful to patients and their trust with healthcare.

SPEAKER_01

It also makes me very curious what his curated algorithm was. Like I'd be so curious to uh get Nick's phone and be like, what does the algorithm show you? Because a year ago, the algorithm definitely showed me an entire gynecologist's office getting fired for making fun of patients' discharge, for example.

SPEAKER_02

Right. So that one, in case people didn't see that, it was a clinic in Santa Barbara. And um they had, so for folks who might not have ever been to a gynecologist because they're men or for other reasons, um, there's, you know, an exam table like in any other clinic. And then there's a that weird paper that is used as a barrier on the exam table. And so in this clinic, they had taken the staff at the clinic had taken multiple photos of that paper after an exam had been done. And often there's like ultrasound gel or whatever other fluid. Um, sometimes you have an exam where they're injecting water or saline up into the uterus, for example. That's, I mean, there's lots of reasons for there to be fluid left on the table. And they took pictures of these tables and acted like these were gifts, I believe was the word that they had used, left to them by these patients. But it was to make fun of that aspect of gynecologic care. And it really was not, I mean, I don't know what was in the minds of any of the people who were participating in that, but it really came across as making fun of women and suggesting that women are gross and that our bodily functions are gross. And so all of the staff who were involved in that, to my knowledge, were fired. And this is actually what I said in the video that I made about the student you're talking about, because that was only in September. And I was like, did we not learn a lesson that we did not be making fun of patients? Okay, but what's interesting too about it is that somebody in my comments was like, Well, but those were real patients, and he's not talking about real patients. And it was like, are you really trying to make this distinction right now?

SPEAKER_01

Also, you know, it I I have said for for many years, um, like I remember when I was in medical school, and it was when there was just Facebook, right? Like there was no Instagram had not been made, like TikTok was a was a was a twinkle in somebody's digital eye. Um and I remember being told by our professors, like, you all better get off of Facebook because it's gonna ruin your careers and you're never gonna get a job and all this sort of stuff. And I'm going, what are people putting online? Um and I think that we've done a real disservice in not making everybody in medical school learn a little bit about online ethics. I I mean, as an ethics instructor, I actually used to do some training in the ethics course I taught, but then I I there's only so many minutes that you can teach people. And so I really had to prioritize things that were definitely going to impact all of our students as opposed to just some of them. But now with people who, even if you're not making the content, if you're consuming the content, we want clinicians to be, you know, more deeply engaged in that. And the fact that that in 2026, the Mayo Clinic, one of the finest medical schools in the country, had this medical student become this famous and nobody thought, does he know that we're all watching his videos?

SPEAKER_02

So I do want to talk about that because I'm not so sure that there had not been any previous interventions with this student.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, there may have been.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. They were clearly ineffective. Right. Whatever was there clearly didn't prevent this from happening. But I want I want to point that out because I do think there are people who um, and I don't pretend, like you said, I don't pretend to know what else has happened for the student in their career or even what other videos they've made that may have been problematic in the past. But what I do know is that a medical school, I have never heard, let me say, a medical school go from a controversial post on social media to expelling a student within a couple of weeks. I literally never seen that happen. And it makes me think, again, not having any insider information, that there were previous transgressions, whether online or otherwise, that had made a track record for this student that he likely, likely, I don't know, but I'm just saying, based on the facts that we do know, it seems very likely that he had previously been warned. Perhaps he had previously been given remediation plans. I don't know, but schools do not take expelling a student lightly at all. It is a major decision, one that can lead to lawsuits if it's not adequately thought through and justified. So I'm saying that because a lot of folks who don't work in medical education may think this is a case of so-called cancel culture where it's cancel culture. Yes, where there was one or two, where this person maybe made, in their view, one or two, you know, joke videos that weren't that funny and now lost their whole career. And I can understand why people would think that maybe is not appropriate. But one, I don't think that's what happened. I think there is very likely a history of inappropriate behavior and that this was the last thing that was in a string of um incidents that led Mayo to make this decision.

SPEAKER_01

And two And for folks who don't know because we haven't actually said that yet, our understanding based on what has been reported is that this student has been expelled.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yes. Thank you for for stating that. And so the second thing I want to say is that even if a person just makes one or two inappropriate social media videos, that in this type of inappropriate, like where you're making fun of patients, your healthcare professional making fun of patients and expressing misogynistic views, that suggests really bad judgment. And it's very likely that that bad judgment extends well beyond making and posting two social media videos. So even if you're tempted to say, well, it was just one or two videos, I encourage folks to stop and think because anyone who went through all the steps of conceiving of the video, filming the video, editing the video, posting the video, many stages at which they could have thought to themselves, maybe this isn't appropriate, but didn't, and then was met with backlash when the videos were posted and then never apologized. That person, I'm not talking about this student in particular, but someone who goes through those steps is likely making bad choices in many other arenas in ways, in this specific context of these the misogyny demonstrating these videos in ways that are likely to harm patients.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and the other, well, first of all, I completely agree. And the other aspect of this is there are many people who manage to get into medical school who may have these same thoughts, who may have these same uh feelings, who feel this way about women as patients. Most medical students seem to be capable. Let's say there's a few, let's say there's a few, right? I mean, looking online, there is no shortage of misogyny. There is no shortage of people who seem very happy to explain away what this student chose to do. Let's say there's one or two in like every medical school class, right? They know to not say it out loud and they know to not say it on the internet. So from my position, we are lucky that this student showed us. They showed us their poor judgment. They showed us how much they dislike women and don't care about women, they showed us how incapable they are of being like, geez, maybe I should do a little ethical reflection on what my external role as a healthcare provider should be. Because the moment you enter medical school, you are being indoctrinated into this profession. And this profession has a lot of problems. No. But each of us needs to be figuring out how do I want to be? Who am I becoming by my actions every day in this profession? When I'm committed to patients, I understand that the way I act outside of work is reflective of what people can expect from me as a doctor. I'm not like a different person in the, you know, in the hospital and out of the hospital.

SPEAKER_02

Like I'm still me. Absolutely. I mean, that and that's what patients see. And I think it's Um look, I get it. We all like to make jokes. And I mean, I love to make people smile and laugh. And you're very good at it, better at it than I am. Um, so I get that motivation of like, oh, ha ha, this might be funny. And you don't get to having the size of a platform that he had, which I believe was um, again, the accounts are gone, so we can't see anymore, but I think it was 500,000-ish that he had on uh followers on TikTok. That's that's a lot of followers. That's a lot of followers. And I don't know how many he had on Instagram. And so you don't get there without like having made really engaging content. And so kudos to anyone who can do that, truly. Um, and there is this responsibility that comes with being in healthcare, even as a medical student. You are representative of the profession. And one thing that's become really clear, even more clear, I would say, in the last five, six years, is that patients have a lot of mistrust in the medical system. And I don't see that it's getting better right now over time. It's getting worse. Yeah, despite a lot of efforts that many people are making. And videos like this contribute to that problem. And if you go watch, I want to just call out, shout out to Jennifer, Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, who's the first person I saw talking about these specific videos. But if you go look at the comments on her videos, or if you look at um, there's another case that you kind of alluded to earlier uh that has been getting some attention recently of a nurse that had to do with a fully catheter placement. Um, and you go look at the comments of the videos like Dr. Femwell Millhouse has made a couple of videos about that, and um Lindsay Shelton Scrub Hacks has made videos, and you go look at the comments, and there are so many women who are talking about this being the exact reason that they are concerned about seeking health care, they're stressed out, they're afraid, and in some cases have avoided health care for a long time. And others have experienced sexual abuse, um, you know, outside of healthcare settings. But then when you're going to have these kinds of exams and procedures that are very intimate, it brings up that trauma. And so they need to feel safe and they need to feel like the people caring for them respect them. And I just don't think that that is a feeling that everyone has right now. And when we see these videos, it's, I get it, tempting to say it's just a joke, but just like it's just locker room talk when we're talking about the president talking about how he can assault women because he's famous. When you're famous, you can do it. Um these are the same types of harmful rhetoric that go much deeper than it's just a joke. The joke, if there is one, and first of all, like I should say, it's none of it was funny. Like, no, a joke should be funny, you know, just bottom line, like basic standards. But beyond that, not only are they not funny, but you are um normalizing the disrespect to female anatomy and to women patients that makes us want to avoid healthcare. And that's the very last thing we should be doing as healthcare workers.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And the person whose work I also really want to highlight is Stephanie Tillman, who you can follow at Feminist Midwife. And Stephanie just completed her dissertation and got her PhD talking about medical rape culture and the fact that, you know, pelvic exams are just one of the many ways, or like any sort of pelvic procedures, which includes things like foley placement, it includes things like rectal exams, that these are spaces where the behavior that this student is is demonstrating, and the the nurse uh that I that that you mentioned and that I mentioned earlier, that person uh had a video showing them opening a Foley catheter using music that uh was incredibly sexualized uh about doing a procedure and put something about, you know, Gen Z getting a Foley placement. Right. That was the thing by the way, is children.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, Gen Z goes down to, I believe, age 14 right now. And so gross. This person was sexualizing a medical procedure, one that no one wants to have, first of all, nobody's looking forward to a urinary catheterization. And also you usually will have that done either because you're having a procedure and you're not going to be able to control your bladder for a while, or maybe you're in the intensive care unit and you're sedated and so you don't have control over your bladder. You know, there's the people who are having a fully catheter, it's not like you just women, I should say, it's not like you're just having it in an outpatient clinic as part of your routine care. You are probably in the hospital for something relatively serious. And to, I mean, not that it matters how serious it is, you still shouldn't be sexualizing any medical procedures, but certainly that was very, very distasteful, disrespectful, offensive. And it's an objectification of women in the healthcare setting. And I just, you know, someone else said this on one of my posts earlier, like as a physician, this never ever even remotely for a millisecond occurred to me to sexualize a patient or a procedure for a patient in any arena at any time in the many years that I've been in healthcare. And it makes sense that some men like that would think this way because they don't think of us as people to begin with. It reflects, again, a deeper issue of the objectification, in that case, with this sexualization video of the objectification of women. We exist to serve a man's needs, not as independent humans with our own concerns and needs and health issues. Um, so yeah, I agree. I think I'm disturbed by how many of these we're seeing. And I will say somebody had written a comment on one of my videos saying, Well, are you gonna call out all these other people who use that same audio and they put screenshots? I can't really tell what's going on in these other videos, but they look like they're mostly people talking about how hard it is to place a fole. Again, I can't really tell. And I will say it can be challenging. It can be challenging to place a urinary catheter, which was called a fully catheter, in female patients. It's certainly more challenging. Like finding the urethra on a on a female patient is more challenging than finding it on a male patient. That's just facts. Um, and it's, I think, not at all disrespectful to talk about the fact that it can be challenging. And so I'm hoping that that's what was being done in those other videos. I don't know. Um, but that's different from making fun of female anatomy, which is what was being done by that medical student, or sexualizing a medical procedure, which is what was being done by this nurse. And so I think people, some people may be confused about like what is okay and what is not okay.

SPEAKER_01

And I think it's I mean, I having I I looked up the other lyrics to that song, and I will say that trending audio should not be used for anything that has to do with anything medical.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, the one that the the the nurse used. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Agreed. Agreed. Absolutely. Well, and the other thing I I think is also important to talk about obviously, you know, you and I are talking a lot about women and the experience of of why women are afraid to come in to get care. And I I think it's also worth noting. I mean, I'm just thinking back when I was an intern, I had to be, I did a urology rotation. It was one of our required rotations. And so that meant that like in the middle of the night, I had to be the person who had to put foley catheters in for for people who couldn't go to the bathroom for whatever reason. And sometimes like the really big ones for like irrigation and things like that. And I was traumatized by having to traumatize these people. And like, you know, I was using lidocaine and I was, I was trying to do it in the most trauma-informed way I could. Um, but there are many, any procedure that we are doing, especially in a in an area of a person's body that is typically private, not typically exposed, it's just such a sensitive time. And this is also the way that medical rape culture shows up and harms everybody. It just, you know, any time that, um, you know, to your point, like I have never once gone to put in a foley and and had any sexual thoughts because that's really gross. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And that's just it's a different, it shows you where you're thinking about the patient in a different way from how you should be thinking about a patient. There's no context in which we should be caring for a patient and thinking about them in that way. Um, one last thing I want to say about this topic is there was a video I saw this week that was men accompanying their partners, female partners, to gynecology visits. And um, I guess this is a thing that women will film their partner trying to figure out what the stirrups are for. And they would be like, is this for your elbows? Like, do you move them? What is happening with these? And then every time in this sequence that I saw, anyway, somebody had done a compilation, every time they were told that it was for their feet and that you sit or that you're facing up, not laying down. Um, the men would be like, huh? And then a few of them like tried to put their feet and they were like, nope. They like quickly just crossed their legs because they feel so vulnerable. It's such a vulnerable position to be in. I think it was helpful to see, like for them, it was helpful to feel like, oh, this is this is bad. I don't I don't like how this feels. Because I I think a lot of men don't realize physically what it is like to be in that position. And and so it's easy to minimize like what we experience as women, but it's not great. Like you have to really trust the people who are there to take care of you because you're in a position where you can't really defend yourself if someone were to do something inappropriate. Anyway, I don't want to go too far down that line, but I did think it was funny to see the men being like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and then I just, you know, we'll put a link to this in the show notes. But uh Chloe Nasra Lee, who's a physician uh who's a psychiatry resident, wrote a piece that's in med page today about this uh medical student and the videos they made. And it says that medical student's misogyny isn't funny. Nick Bomel's cheap shot of female patients harms trust in doctors. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes for folks who want to hear a little bit more. Um I I, for one, I am a huge fan of second chances. I am a huge fan of people living through their mistakes and claiming accountability and growing and becoming the people they need to be. But no one has the right to be a doctor. And we have to protect our profession. We have to demand more from people who want to be in this profession because patients should not trust us if we let people who behave this way into our ranks.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely agree. And I think it's none of our business what else has happened with this student. And we have to I don't want anything bad to happen to him. Right. No, me neither.

SPEAKER_01

And I mean, he got kicked out of medical school, supposedly, which I think is sufficient.

SPEAKER_02

Right. And I think we have to, to some degree, trust that the folks at Mayo Clinic who made that decision understood the ramifications and made it for a good reason. I have no reason to doubt the decision makers at Mayo Clinic, right? Or at any other medical school, to be honest. Like they they take this very, very seriously. So I think that's the thing to remember. We may never hear what else happened, and it's really none of our business. But the important thing is that everyone learn from this and understand the ramifications of what you may think is just a joke, but when the joke is at the expense of a group of people who are going to be your patients, it's not worth however many internet points you're gonna get. I completely agree. So, is that anything else you wanted to share about that one? Or can we move on?

SPEAKER_01

I think that was more than enough about these boys on the internet.

SPEAKER_02

I agree. Okay, so the other thing that I wanted to talk about this week is about ice. And we've talked about ice multiple times, but you know, they just keep being newsworthy, darn it. Um, this weekend, um, the president announced that they were going to deploy ice into airports. So, as folks probably know, we've had a government shutdown largely over the fact that there is not widespread public support for funding DHS and specifically for funding ICE, although ICE already is funded separately. And so the Democrats have multiple times proposed funding bills that would fund TSA and other agencies, and the Republicans have rejected all of those um attempts. Within the last few days, the president had said that he like explicitly said that he did not want any bill to go through until funding bill to go through until they passed the Save America Act, which is a voter disenfranchisement act. So he's basically held TSA agents and travelers hostage until legislators will approve a bill that will literally disenfranchise millions of people in this country. Because we're not here to talk about the Save America Act, but I'll just say briefly that the part of the requirements of that are that people have a birth certificate that matches their passport or other, there's several different versions of which IDs you would need, but typically the things that they're asking for are ones where women who have changed their name because, say, they got married would not be able to meet those requirements. Um, and also people who don't have a passport, which is quite a lot of people in this country would have great difficulty meeting their requirements. And it costs money to get a lot of the documents that they want people to have in order to prove that you know we are citizens. So it's all under the guise of trying to stop fraudulent voting, which is something that happens extraordinarily rarely in this country. And in fact, just this week, a man who is a Republican who had been supposedly very concerned about election fraud was himself arrested for election fraud. So the people come. I know. So the people who are so concerned about election fraud, my take on it is that they're concerned because they're the ones trying to do it all the time. And they think I think methinks he doth protest too much. Right. And they think that the rest of us are doing it too. But the data, when you look at the data that people have studied, you know, voter fraud, it's extraordinarily rare that someone who is not eligible to vote would try to vote in this country. So it's really a non-issue. But the Save America Act is the latest version. There was a version of this last year. There have been multiple versions of this, and each time they have not made it through the process, so they've not entered into law, but they make a few changes and they try again. So that's the version that's um currently, you know, being discussed. And so the president had said to the Republican legislators that he did not want them to agree to any funding bill until the Save America Act is passed. Now, of course, Republican legislators also, I think, are not necessarily all in favor of the Save America Act because the data suggests that the people who are most likely to be disenfranchised actually are people in so-called red states. So it's really not to their benefit. Anyway, separate conversation that we can have another day. But the point is the result of all that is that TSA agents have been working for weeks without pay. And many of them have left. I think it's over 400 TSA agents have resigned in this period of time. And those who are showing up are doing so in good faith. Like they are not getting paid. Some of them, I've seen news reports, are sleeping at the airport because they can no longer afford the transportation to get back and forth to their home. Um, and because there's this shortage and because of the lack of funding, we're seeing much longer wait times at some airports. Um, like Atlanta is one of the major ones that has had just extraordinarily long lines, so much so that this week they apparently hired live music to entertain folks waiting in line. Yeah, they're recommending folks get to the airport four or five hours in advance for domestic flights. Um, and so as all this is happening and travelers are getting more and more upset, the president says, we have a great solution. We're just gonna send ICE agents into airports. Now, ICE agents are not trained to be TSA agents, right? So what is the benefit of sending them there? Um, you know, the Tom Homan, who is, you know, part of our federal government, right, was talk, was asked about this last weekend. And it was very clear from his interview that he actually didn't know what ICE agents would be doing. You know, somebody had seen the reporter had seen Trump's statement and was asking him, so what will they do? Will they be looking for people to deport? Will they be doing like TSA screening? And he was like, Well, they're not trained to do the screening, you know, like the when your suitcase goes through. He's like, they're not trained to do that. And basically, like it was just very clear he had no idea what they would be doing. And then very soon thereafter, they deployed ice. I thought, I thought this was gonna be one of the taco things, you know, Trump taco Trump always uh chickens out. I thought this was gonna be one of those empty threats, but like very soon after they deployed ice agents to 14 different airports. And there's all these videos all over the internet of them doing nothing, like drinking a coffee, having a burger, looking at their phones. Because what can they do? They're not qualified again to be TSA agents. And there's one of this ICE agent who happens to be a white man, and he's standing behind a TSA agent who happens to be a black woman, and she's, you know, screening somebody. And somebody had posted this and said, wow, you have a white guy getting paid to supervise a black woman who's not getting paid. It's a great look. Um, you know, and so for TSA agents, right, they continued this week to show up and work for nothing, and then they have to coexist with these ICE agents who are showing up and doing nothing but getting paid to do nothing. It's like a way to ruin TSA and to ruin airports and air traffic uh for everyone. And the reason I want to mention it is that air travel is so common, right? Like many of us travel routinely. I thankfully travel a lot less than I used to, but I do have a trip coming up. And ever since this administration, I have been worried about any travel, to be honest, even before ICE was brought into the airports. And I have been traveling with my passport, I'm a naturalized, and I have been traveling with my passport since you know, February-ish of last year. And you can imagine folks who are on green cards, folks who are on temporary visas, um, folks who um may be indeterminate status currently, or folks who have deportation orders may feel very, very anxious and reasonably so about any air travel now. And it's not clear, you know, people have asked Trump if these ICE agents will be doing immigration enforcement at the airports. And he's said, yeah, why not? They can do it, they're good at it, blah, blah, you know. Basically, like he hasn't said no, they won't be doing that. So now we've added these mobsters really to places where they should not be. And there was, I don't know if you saw this video, but on Sunday, there was a woman detained at SFO, which is our local airport, San Francisco. Um, and apparently it was TSA who had tipped off ice to whatever the situation was with this woman and her daughter. And there's these brutal videos of her being detained by them. Um, and that's not one of the 14 airports to which ICE agents have been deployed currently. So not only are we seeing these really long lines that are making air travel really, really stressful, but now we all really have to be, regardless of your status, have to be worried about what is ICE doing? I mean, we know, even if you think you're safe because you're a US citizen, we know ICE has detained numerous US citizens. And it's not like, you know, if people remember the lawsuit that went all the way to Supreme Court and Brett Kavanaugh was like, it's fine if they detain people based on how they look. And if they happen to be US citizens, they'll get released. And that's not exactly how.

SPEAKER_01

After a brief interaction, it's no big deal. Whatever. Send them to COT, it's fine. It'll just be temporary. Right. Temporary, temporary little trip to El Salvador. Listen, I have said it before and I will say it again. We are living in the dumbest timeline.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that is for sure. I want to talk about a couple things related to this. So one is that many people are rightfully pointing out that this is all very consistent with what's in Project 2025. So Project 2025 does say that they want to basically privatize TSA, that they want to get rid of the unions for public workers. Um, and this can very well be part of that effort, right? And we know, again, from Project 2025 that they want to privatize a lot of government functions, including TSA. And so how do you do that? You just you make it impossible for that thing to work. We've seen this with the NIH, right? Got rid of tons of people. By the way, I saw this week a report that said 95,000 scientists have left our federal government in the last year. Like that is an astounding. Talk about a brain drain. Astounding loss for science in this country. Terrible. Anyway, so this is part of that process, right? Like, make the conditions totally disfavorable. TSA agents leave, you remove their union, more of them leave, and you say, well, gosh, we can't really function anymore. We're going to have to hire out these services. Oh, guess who has a company that can hire out agents for this? Me, myself, and I, and my brother and my sister, and my aunt, and whatever. You know, so like it's all just everything this administration does is to make themselves more money. And this is another example of that. And another thing that people have rightfully brought up is that the more ICE agents are normalized as being just kind of part of our daily lives, the more or the easier it. comms to deploy them to polling stations for the election in the fall. And I it's worth noting, in case folks haven't seen these images, that the ICE agents in the airports are carrying weapons, like openly carrying rifles and so on. For no reason. There is no need for that at airports. And so you can imagine those folks at polling places acting as intimidators to make it harder for people to vote at the same time that they are trying to eliminate mail-in voting, at the same time that they have already said that basically you can't rely on a postmark anymore because the post office can choose to, yeah, you may not have heard the story, but the post office can choose to hold on to your mail for however they want. There's no longer a requirement that they stamp your mail the day that you tried to send it. And so if you were going to do a mail-in vote, mail-in ballot, even if you sent it in weeks in advance, it might not get delivered and your vote vote might not count. And they're of course defunding the US Postal Service. There's all sorts of stuff going on there separate from what it has to do with voting. But a lot of the things that we're seeing now are a setup for what they intend to do to make it harder in particular for folks in specific states like California to vote in the election. And so that's I think really important for people to understand. It's not just about long lines to get through TSA um or whatever. And it's also worth noting because I've seen some some people making these points about well we don't want illegal immigrants here. So if they can get them at the airport all the better. And oh shut up oh God shut up yes and you know in general I don't think people who are here illegally are eager to interact with the system which is what you have to do when you go through TSA even in normal times without ICE. So it's really not a high yield location to be looking for people who are not here with totally legal status.

SPEAKER_01

With like documentation that lets them get into the airport. Correct I just why are these I mean I know why I know it's because they want to make our lives fucking miserable and like I'm just yes I want to I want to go back I want to go back to having a functional government. Like it wasn't great. It needed improvements for it but like this is not it folks.

SPEAKER_02

A couple other things I want to point out um one is Steve Bannon has explicitly said oh he's not dead yet I know nor is he in prison somehow it's amazing. Well it's not that amazing because they pardoned everybody but I wanted to tell you exactly what Steve Bannon had said about ICE. He said we can use this ICE helping at airports as a test run, a test case to really perfect ICE's involvement in the 2026 midterms. And he said this in conversation with somebody named Mike Davis I think we should have ICE agents at the polling places. So it's not um that's not theoretical like they are actually saying out loud that this is what they intend to do. And so basically ICE is turning into a personal security force for the president to carry out whatever he wants. And that's part of what happens when you hire very quickly and you hire people with um questionable educational status and give them minimal training and the only thing that they're taught to care about is what the president wants. So not to leave people down, I do want to share some tips because it's sort of our vibe though. I know it is I know I know apologies. But uh I I do want to give folks some tips that I've seen from immigration lawyers and other sources if you do have to travel I think the most obvious recommendation is if you don't have to travel right now, just don't it's not maybe worth the hassle. Even putting ICE aside the strains on TSA and then we saw also this weekend that tragedy at LaGuardia where the plane ran into a fire truck due to air traffic control miscommunication. So we have genuine security and safety issues in terms of air travel and and air traffic control because we already were understaffed from with air traffic controllers and then Doge did what they did, which is to make everything worse than it was. And Sean Duffy, who's our reality TV secretary of transportation, if folks remember a couple months ago put out that video of how we should be changing air travel and the answer was uh travelers should dress nicer and maybe we need a workout area. So you know we don't really have someone who's paying attention to the real problems with air travel unfortunately. So there are safety concerns that I very much have and have had for a while. And then we've got the long lines because of the TSA shortage and now you add to that ice in airports it's just a recipe that's not tasty. So I think if you don't need to travel don't that's the most obvious advice if you do need to travel these are some of the tips that I've read um turning off biometrics on your phone which is your your facial recognition or if you have a fingerprint thing turn that off before you go into the airport. Some have suggested deleting your social media apps so that even if folks get access to your phone, they can't see what you've been posting or liking or engaging with. Going through TSA either with your phone in airplane mode or with your phone off and just in your bag. Printing your boarding pass so that you don't need to use your phone as you're going through. And you can do that by the way at most airports in the entrance area at departures you don't need to have a printer at home to do that. Declining face scans as you go through TSA because they're building I love to decline the face scan.

SPEAKER_01

Oh I love it. Oh have you done it? No I usually just do it I drop my mask on and I go no no I just go oh I don't consent and I do it with a smile but I what I do is I just make sure that I have my ID out and I go oh I don't consent to that thank you so much. And then they're like well then we're gonna need your ID and I'm like I haven't yeah because I want that person to have to look at my face I'm so pretty look at me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah I love that okay I'm gonna start I'm gonna start doing that um and then write down emergency contact phone numbers before you go so that you don't need to get into your phone if something does happen and you need to be able to call someone um all of that is true for everyone in particular if you are undocumented if you have temporary status or you have a deportation order please don't travel. Yeah this is just not the time. I mean obviously you have to make your own decisions but this is a terrible time to be traveling. Also if you have a green card and any um convictions there are certain ones that trigger this I don't know which one so if you have any convictions maybe don't travel right now. And then um DACA, there's been concern that DACA folks will also get um detained it is important to know your rights or when you're traveling or anytime you're interacting with ICE. And that includes you don't have to unlock your phone, you don't have to talk to them. But as was pointed out um in I think it was from KQED, this article I was reading, your choices are a little bit more limited in the airport because yeah you can say I'm not gonna tell you but then they can just pull you out of line and hold you back and then you miss your flight. So it's a little bit trickier to be able to actually assert your rights in this context unless of course you have a lot of flexibility with your travel and you don't mind missing a flight. But it's just a much more stressful environment obviously to interact with um with ICE, having your immigration documents whatever they are so if it's your green card, have that you know with you obviously and like I said even as a citizen I travel with my passport so having your passport if you have one is helpful. If you're not if you're a natural born birthright US citizen um and you look white because even if you're have a birthright citizen and you look brown you can get caught up in this stuff because they're racist. But if you look white um then being ready to film is helpful. You can't interfere interfere with ICE activities or else you might get detained but you are absolutely entitled to film and record and that's really really helpful for documenting what's happening it can really be supportive of those who get detained unlawfully and hopefully one day by the way there will be a reckoning for all of this and this documentation will be really important. I think those are the key I'm just double checking my notes I think those were the key recommendations that I've seen um so I'll put a link or a couple links into uh the show notes for folks to to look at that but just think really carefully about whether this is a time for air travel.

SPEAKER_01

Well you know what time it is Argivon what time is it Alyssa It's time to take to and call me in the morning.

SPEAKER_02

Oh fantastic well I have something I'd really like to share can I go first oh great tell me okay so there is a comedian and actor named Drewski I hope how he pronounces his name D-R-U-S-K-I who um does satirical skits and he put one out yesterday that is just chef's kiss uh this is a black man Drewski is a black man he is in full makeup and wig everything to look like Erica Kurt and um the video is called something like you know Americ conservative women in America and he's I'm sorry for people who are listening you don't know like the face I'm making is out of control. Okay okay tell me everything so there's like there's it's so good you just have to watch it so I will put the link in but he's at the beginning I think it was uh that scene where she was at like whatever event that she was at where like soon after Charlie's death where they had those like massive sparklers I don't even know what they're called but you know like indoor fireworks that they were doing and she like comes out in her suit. So he has that scene um and he has the scene I the what I thought was the best was he's like sitting down and talking to somebody and I forget even what he's saying but it's like that same thing that was in one of her interviews where they do these close ups of her and he's wearing contact lenses so he's got the blue eyes and and he she has those like honestly the kind of like satanic eyes as she's like looking at the camera and he does he nails it. He's got that same look as he's like talking about God and the Bible and whatever but he's like you know like eyes wide open he's like staring at the camera and they do call it is very scary. And then he's got random scenes of him singing in the car to Katy Peary um just as for fun. And anyway it ends with a scene where I don't know if folks saw that she Erica Kirk um made some comments recently about how men are just being treated so horribly in our society and and they need to stand up for themselves especially she said quote white male men unquote white male men yeah really needed that again as opposed to white female men female men? Yeah it's kind of like transpositive if you think about it. Okay. But anyway so we'll take it yeah so he so Drewski has this scene that he's he's doing and there's a black man who's a security officer a police officer somebody behind him. And so as he's saying again dressed as Erica Kirk talking about how white white men are the ones we really have to worry about in our society this guy in the back is making some excellent faces. So good. Anyway I would recommend that um I might also just throw in a link to a video that he did back in um September I think it was that was also another so-called whiteface video where he is a reddeck. So throwing it back to what you just said um he's got like I don't know how much makeup on to make him look like he has white skin but he's got sunburns and he's got like the American flag tattoos and um I don't need to say more about it but I'll put I'll put a link to that and folks can check it out. Yeah I would recommend recommend watching those. How about you? What do you recommend?

SPEAKER_01

Um well it's not so much uh usually I recommend a social media video but um by the time this episode comes out tomorrow morning so to we're we're recording on March 26th which is a Thursday and um tomorrow's Unicorn Day at work which is an event that my girlfriend and I put together which is a it's it's a testament to my depression from 2022 um where I was so sad and so I started wearing so I started wearing a headband to work that has was a unicorn horn that was washable. So I will put a link to one of my OG videos about starting Unicorn day. But I have a unicorn onesie I'm picking up like a boatload of donuts on the way to work um we have we're gonna have a photo booth we have we make um little bins for everybody who works in the operating room so they can all have a unicorn horn. I got stickers made this year. It's turning into this big community event. This is our fourth annual and the first year it was just me and my friend putting it all together and like surprising everyone and being like there's a party and now it's people have been looking forward to it and I think it's just such a hard time in so many ways right now. And so having a ridiculous glittery party for absolutely no good reason um other than to celebrate the fact that it's really hard to take care of really sick kids and I love that the I love the people I work with and I I love having an opportunity to like make their Friday a little better because Friday is obviously the worst day to have to go to work after Saturday and Sunday.

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome. I'm so glad that you've made this a tradition and I hope it's a wonderful day.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah so I'll I'll drop a uh I'll drop a video and uh we'll we'll I hope you enjoy getting a a little glimpse of what it's like what it's like to be Alyssa pediatric anesthesiologist bioethicist unicorn what's funny is like I am not like I I mean I I have tried to embrace more whimsy but like as a resident I was like I'm badass don't don't bother me I'm a tough girl and um I remember thinking I was going to go into like cardiac anesthesia and I was like gosh I'd be really good at that I I love the anatomy get to do cool procedures and I was like man but the vibes are like not as fun. And I thought I'll do peds and then uh you know you get to like you have to know the Disney songs and you have to be like you can't be too serious when you take care of children. That's not it doesn't work for kids.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah that's right so I love that leaning into the whimsy I think is a fantastic thing to do um really at any time uh anyway so I think that's it for this week's episode. Um we did it we did it once again uh if you didn't like what you heard this has been the Red Band group podcast if you liked it don't forget to subscribe to the Present Illness leave us a review if you don't mind or some ratings and tell folks you know we know you liked it because you stayed this long follow us on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

SPEAKER_01

We are at the present illness and you can stay on top of all of our TPI related news.

SPEAKER_02

We will of course be back next week with more headlines, hot takes and doomscrolling hopefully wrapped in some laughs.

SPEAKER_01

So until then agitate hydrate take a nap. See you next time on the Present Illness production by Argon Salas and Alyssa Berghart editing by Alyssa Bergart social media by Argon Salas and original music by Joseph Uphoff don't take medical advice from two random people on a podcast. This is a show for informational purposes it's meant to be fun and it is certainly not medical advice. Take your medical questions to a qualified professional

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Alyssa Burgart, MD, MA

Host
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Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD

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