JF: You could say that you worked hard for years to become an overnight sensation.
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ACEP Now: Vol 37 – No 05 – May 2018EC: Exactly! I’m like, “I’ve been here the whole time!” When I look at people I admire in health care with huge followings, people like Eugene Gu, MD (@EugeneGu), Atul Gawande, MD, MPH (@Atul_Gawande), or Jen Gunter, MD
(@DrJenGunter), all of these people have been very on-message the entire time. Jen had this amazing blog for a long time before becoming so obviously known and getting a New York Times column. Their messaging and passion have been very consistent. You don’t become somebody else to do this. You’re just who you are and then you hit a moment where your message resonates with a lot people.
JF: Generally, the “tweet storm” or “thread” has become a natural outlet for you. Can you describe the mechanics of that?
EC: This is my favorite thing to do. I love the limited structure of Twitter actually. When you have to be brief, you have to choose your words wisely. But you miss a lot of nuance. I started doing this thing where you post something and then you respond to yourself. So when people pull it up, they see the whole string of messages, and some of them were really long because a bunch of doctors who weren’t on Twitter asked me to post [patients’ stories] in opposition to the AHCA [the American Health Care Act]. That was a nice balance between being able to say a lot but still using the thing about Twitter that makes it beautiful.
JF: And how did you develop the thread about the racism you’ve faced that went so incredibly viral?
EC: It was so organic. You have no idea how spontaneous and random that was. It was a mixture of circumstance and long-brewing thought. Charlottesville [the neo-Nazi protests] happened that weekend, and it was obviously really disturbing how overt the racism had gotten in the last year. I’m in Oregon where there are a ton of white supremacists, so it’s more in my face than ever.
I’m with my family. We’re going to the park, getting ready to play, and my toddler had fallen asleep in the car. So my husband takes the other kids out to the playground, and I’m just sitting in the car doing nothing. I was bored, and of course, as we do, I opened up Twitter, and I just tossed off the thread. The rest of my day happened. I was going into an overnight, so I slept and I went into my shift, came home, and Chelsea Clinton had retweeted it. It just went kaboom! My email box was just [sounds of explosion]. This was not premeditated or well-thought-out.
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3 Responses to “Using Twitter Fame to Advocate for Emergency Medicine”
June 9, 2018
Mark BuettnerThank you for the article Dr. Faust. Congratulations on your new found fame Dr. Choo. Wow, SELF, “Huffpo” and CNN after Just one Tweet? Just think of it, an appearance on CNN after just one Tweet? As they say, “Only in America” I guess. I do have a question about the racism you experienced. Was it exclusively the caucasian nationalists that were racist toward you? Did you experience any racism from nationalists of other races? I served in the U.S. Army with honorable men and women from various different races that were patriotic nationalists. In fact, I paired my shelter half (each soldier carries a half in the field) with the most patriotic nationalist I have ever met, Gilbert C. Gilbert was hispanic and hailed from Chicago. Oh boy was he proud of the Stars and Stripes. We became very good friends. Gilbert and I spent six weeks sleeping inside that tiny tent during a bitter cold winter, in a dusty and desolate desert. We remained bunk mates once our unit moved into the barracks. We did this because we were two young nationalists serving our country. We were protecting the very freedom that you exercised when you tweeted that people like me are racists. I am White and because of my sense of “Nationalism” I served OUR country. Dr. Choo you have made a mistake. Perhaps you meant “White Supremacists” not “White Nationalists”. I do not believe you truly hold the opinion that people like me are all racists. However, I will not say the same for CNN when they regularly mix the two identities. In closing I do have this to say: Dr. Choo, Dr. Faust and ACEP NOW editorial board, take a moment and reflect on why and how this article, in the form that it is in, made it to print in “The Official Voice of Emergency Medicine”.
June 9, 2018
TazYou are not the only one who served this great country. I’m Black, an emergency physician and an Army veteran who served in Bosnia as Chief of the ED. Dr. Choo spoke of her experience in her ED. I don’t think she needs to qualify it to anyone. It was her experience and her perception. Let her be.
Did your friend, Gilbert, describe himself as a nationalist or is that your description of him? True nationalists are indeed patriots. White nationalists are not. You have the unfortunate distinction of being White and a nationalist/patriot. I get the difference, but many will not. That is thanks to the White Nationalists who have bastardized the meaning of the name. And they are racists. I don’t think that is an issue you should take up with Dr. Choo. Take it up with the White Nationalists.
The “Official Voice of Emergency Medicine” is each of us who are emergency physicians. Each voice is the the official voice.
April 6, 2021
Bradley R. Caloia D.O.It truly is shameful that the current poisonous political atmosphere has infiltrated even our ranks. Everyday it seems divisive ideas, tribalism and critical race theory creep further into our institutions. It helps nothing and serves only to prevent us from even listening to each other. A cancer. Dr. Choo is on record making comments about “truly exhausting white people” and multiple tweets stereotyping and labelling people. She claims to be the victim of the very racism she is visibly spreading. It is a growing frustration to see not only respected individuals on Twitter, but our colleges and our publications spreading these destructive ideas. Our charter, our very duty is to approach our patients without regard to color, religion, status. We take all comers. We are those who truly make a difference day in and day out for our patients regardless of how they identify. When we are giving air time to grifters like Ibram X. Kendi and giving voice to frankly racist policies, I can say with absolute certainty that this publication is drifting away from the official voice of the majority of EM and becoming a tool of a radical few.