Bucks Montgomery Physician Fall 2020 - 6

MESSAGE TO MY COLLEAGUES

A Message
to My Colleagues
by Sherry L. Blumenthal, MD, MSEd, FACOG

I

have tried to look at all sides of the events occurring in
our country, our profession, and our Commonwealth.
I look at them through the lens of being a physician,
reading history, learning the Constitution, respecting
religious beliefs and differences, reading and listening to
opinions from both sides, acknowledging my inherent bias
as much as I consciously try to control it, my background
as the child from age 5 of a widowed mother with
no higher education; from a lower-middle class urban
family to a successful OB/GYN in a private practice/
small business in a suburb, as a woman, as a mother, as
someone with white skin who is not considered White by
white-supremacists, who has seen blatant discrimination
against Black Americans as early as high school, who
has experienced blatant discrimination because of my
gender and religion, who has negotiated rampant sexual
harassment and how women are expected to behave,
and who is flawed. We look at everything through
our own lens unless we try to expand our vision.
I take what I have learned and experienced and try
to fight for the things I believe in, not because I am a
good person, but because it is moral and right. This
is not about me! While I am depressed about the
isolation, the inability to see most of my family and
friends, and the impact on my financial status, I am
one of the fortunate ones. As a patriot and physician
though, I cannot stay silent about what is happening
in our country, a Democracy with a mixed history but
powerful intent and laws to have the best nation we can.
My political beliefs are mixed, and I do not consider
myself Liberal, Conservative, or Libertarian, although I

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claim principles from all of them. I appreciate the support
of the Republican party for the rights of physicians, and
the support of the Democratic party for the reproductive
rights of women. I have succeeded in spite of and because
of the prevailing culture. I am outspoken but have tried
to learn to temper my speech to not deliberately offend
people, although sometimes I do, and to accomplish what
I felt was needed. I did not speak out enough during
Medical School and Residency, but rather tried to survive.
The one time I spoke to another resident about the
gross racism of one of our attendings regarding a clinic
patient I was managing, I suffered a severe consequence.
I spoke out about controversial issues in the Medical
Society and was hit with a "gag rule." I have succeeded
because of and in spite of that, although I have tried
to speak the truth. I am satisfied. I am despairing.
Being silent now is being complicit.
Our priorities are muddled, and individuals and our
government have excelled to a level of self-interest that
has dire outcomes. First, COVID-19 knows no politics,
is a major destabilizing, morbid and lethal disease that
our country has failed to control in spite of the best
efforts of the vast majority of medical professionals. It
has caused death, physical and mental illness, has stopped
the public from getting needed medical care of other
conditions, affects all ages, but disproportionately affects
the poor, elderly, and people of color. It has severely
damaged the economy at every level. It has persisted
as a pandemic and disproportionately killed Americans
relative to other populations in the world. Political
and financial motivation has resulted in promoting
Bucks Montgomery Physician Fall 2020

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