Doctor punished after controversial social media post?

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Doctor punished after controversial social media post?

Postby sunglasses » Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:00 pm

Bias report: I am a follower of Dr. Gu, but I will try to be as un-biased as I can be in writing about this.

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.

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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.

angry mom.PNG
angry mom.PNG (273.43 KiB) Viewed 2006 times


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?
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Re: Doctor punished after controversial social media post?

Postby DamianaRaven » Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:26 pm

Angry Mom sounded like an insufferable snotrag until she mentioned Skyler by name. At that point, she abruptly stopped merely sounding like one. The fact that she went well out of her way to insinuate that she's not a racist tells me that her behavior was very much rooted in racism. I mean, why else count and catalog all the different races in a room?
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Re: Doctor punished after controversial social media post?

Postby Tesseracts » Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:40 pm

I don't know anything about this guy. Is there any reason to believe he is racist against white people?
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Re: Doctor punished after controversial social media post?

Postby DamianaRaven » Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:43 pm

Sounds like a whole lot of projection to me. "He's prejudiced against white people because of course he is. After all, I'm prejudiced against other races and I'm a perfectly normal and reasonable person. Also, I lie like lizard shit about it whenever confronted, which is why you can't trust a word that racist says in his defense!"
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Last edited by DamianaRaven on Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Doctor punished after controversial social media post?

Postby sunglasses » Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:45 pm

Tesseracts wrote:I don't know anything about this guy. Is there any reason to believe he is racist against white people?


Not that I can find. Apparently she was referencing his "taking a knee" picture.
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Re: Doctor punished after controversial social media post?

Postby Marcuse » Thu Jan 18, 2018 9:26 pm

Ehhhh. Here goes.

Gu sounds like a fucking pain in the arse to work with or manage. If he was complaining about just being allegedly assaulted, and placed on leave unfairly then that's one thing. Sure if that happened then it's unacceptable, and absolutely they should investigate that a discipline the "chief resident" who did that. They should also look into why they placed him on leave if they did so and what reason was given at the time for it.

But Gu appears determined to complain about everything he possibly can. The statement in the local newspaper from him indicates that he's claiming that the person who assaulted him has already confessed to doing it and publishing it on the media and social media to his own advantage. He's also claiming that because VUMC tagged his account in a tweet that they we encouraging all the VUMC followers to harass him. I'm...unsure about the thought process there. He also likes to claim that there's a problem with the disciplinary procedures because it's all "internal". I'm not sure what public or external disciplinary procedure he'd like, but I feel like he's trying to appeal to the Court of Public Opinion to get what he wants, and part of doing that is claiming that he won't get a fair shake from the standard procedures.

The problem is that this would only be to his personal benefit. If he was making a stand over some provision of care for his patients, or some issue regarding poor care being given and he was blowing the whistle, that would be one thing. But he's complaining that VUMC are thwarting his career because of his outspoken political opinions, and that just doesn't wash as an altruistic "stand" as it's being portrayed to me. I think he's working to get what he wants by kicking up as much attention as he can, and I can certainly see why VUMC wouldn't want someone like that working for them, or would see the need to discipline him (if they even have). His actions are deliberately, for his own benefit, bringing VUMC into disrepute. On top of this, when he's been spoken to about this, his takeaway from it appears to have been "ditch the SJW shit or you're gone" when VUMC have released a very unequivocal statement that he was not. I'd expect more vagueness from an organisation that had actually said that and was trying to cover.

So overall I'm not convinced by Gu's schtick, mainly because I can't see it benefitting anyone else but him and his career and social media profile.
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Re: Doctor punished after controversial social media post?

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Fri Jan 19, 2018 8:31 am

sunglasses wrote: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 isn't really enough, to be honest. Hiding his employer doesn't really make his twitter his private account or automatically include the "my views are my own" disclaimer. An emphatic "My views are my own" on his account bio along with identifying his employer should be the standard for a professional's account. If he wants his account tied to a real person, he's tying it to the hospital the real person's working for. The default assumption of someone reading his bio can't be "Oh his hospital isn't there, guess he doesn't work for anyone", can it? It doesn't tell anyone looking why they can't go check his linkedin or location to see what hospital he's working in to go complain at. (the reason's that his views are his own)

I think if you really want views that can't be tied to your hospital, you should be using a pseudonymous account. Otherwise they're tied by default...through you.
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Re: Doctor punished after controversial social media post?

Postby iMURDAu » Fri Jan 19, 2018 1:02 pm

Just because he doesn't state where he works doesn't mean he's exempt from following policies.

Social media is not a platform where you're able to speak freely without consequence.

Imo even taking a political stance and saying "this is my own opinion" is risky in his case because there's still people who hold opposing views and may come under his care. They might not feel like they'd get the best care. Like ACL said, you can't be an anonymous activist online while using your real name.
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