First things first, Dr. Gu is on twitter and has a bit of a following. On his twitter bio he identifies himself as a surgeon and a Duke med school grad but he never states his current employer. This is important.
After Vanderbilt Health made numerous public statements and pinned posts, it became apparent that he was an employee of Vanderbilt Health. He states he was suspended because a patient's mother complained about a post of his on twitter, Vanderbilt Health claims he has not been. They also state that he's been told he needs to update his social media to meet their policy:
Further, he has never been told that he must change his political views or the substantive content related to his personal participation on social media platforms. He has been advised of the need to adhere to VUMC’s social media policy, which requires that persons who are identified as representatives of VUMC clearly state that their views are their own. Dr. Gu has also been advised that resident physicians should be professional and respectful in their interactions and communications.
He has mentioned Vanderbuilt on twitter before they tagged him and his leave became public a total of 7 times. Of those seven, twice he emphasized that his views were his own. To me, it always seemed clear that his views were his own.
This all started after a Buzzfeed News article in which he had taken a picture of him taking a knee and some people criticized him saying he was "too privileged for that" which honestly I'm just rolling my eyes at and not even going to touch it. But...this take the knee post did result in him receiving threatening messages as well as people calling for others to boycott him.
After this article was brought to the attention of the medical center problems started.
First, Dr. Gu stated that he received a letter warning him of his social media use. Then he stated he was put on administrative leave after being assaulted on site. But why he thinks he was really suspended?
An angry mom on facebook.
She allegedly wrote to a director of the health center claiming he was racist against white people and that she was scared of the care he'd give her son.
Vanderbilt Health stated that any issues were performance related-a bit contrary to their their initial statement to the Duke Chronicle. After social media backlash, Vanderbilt University has distanced themselves from the Medical Center.
Some people (on reddit) are claiming he's "playing victim" and he can't be believed because he's "an SJW adulterer." O-kay. Eh, it's r/TheDonald and they're still presumably upset that he's suing 45 for blocking him. I cannot confirm that the he is the same Eugene Gu in their screenshots. I find it a bit suspect as he was graduating med school in 2015. I cannot stress just how hard it is to maintain one relationship while in med school, let alone multiple as insinuated by the screenshots. Is it possible? Sure, but many doctors I've met waited until after they graduated med school to get married, so it's hard for me to fathom one who was not only married but then got divorced with 4 kids during his graduation year. Just saying, reddit. Why am I bringing this up? To Carp anyone else from doing so.
*ahem*
Dr. Gu has also been in the cross hairs of Congress in the past for having a research company (now closed) that used fetal tissue in research as noted by academiablog.org.
Is it possible that he was indeed harassed by the chief resident and surgical nurses? Oh hell yes. I cannot tell you how petty and clique-y things can get in a hospital. Seriously, Scrubs was right on a lot of that. You can be the best surgical resident in the world but if the chief doesn't like you they will make your life a living hell to try to get you to break-and honestly that sort of thing needs to be exposed more.
It's impossible to know what really happened but I can state that I have been told by health systems in the past that I "represented them at all times-even off work-and could not express any views or behaviors that would put them in a bad light." Even if I never said where I worked, they claimed people would know. They made it clear that we were never to have our badge on outside of work, just in case we embarrassed them. I find this position rather ludicrous and stand by my belief that my personal life should not be scrutinized by my employer as long as I'm performing my job functionally and safely.
Constructive thoughts about this?