HOUSTON – The same questions are becoming more frequent, “Why didn’t you do this? Why didn’t you do that? Why didn’t you do this? I saw on TV that this is good,” said Dr. Joseph Varon of United Memorial Medical Center in North Houston.
Varon and another doctor KPRC 2 Investigates spoke to off-camera said they are being put on the defensive by patients and their families who are second-guessing their efforts.
“These people that come to me, especially the unvaccinated, they question everything,’ said Varon. The other doctor says they have been berated consistently in recent weeks with some frustrations being aired out over social media.
Both doctors are making it clear that they are being grilled every single day by skeptical patients and their families.
“There is no day when I don’t get a phone call from a family member of one of the patients we have that suggests we use a particular type of medication,” Varon said.
However, the problems don’t stop there, according to Varon.
“They actually not only request, they tell you that if you don’t do it, they are going to get a lawyer or do something like that,” he added.
This is why he and other doctors say they find themselves spending more time documenting their cases. They view it as a way to cover their own bases. Varon indicating he spends about 20% more time chronicling cases because of pushback.
“You’re talking about somebody that has been studying and working for, let’s say 20 years, and now you have somebody that is not even a doctor and is criticizing a treatment,” Varon said.
What does he attribute it to? Politics, social media, one-sided cable channels and success stories a patients’ family has heard elsewhere.
“Every time you have anybody that says, ‘This worked for me.’ That can backfire on you because you’re going to give it to somebody else and it doesn’t work, so who is the one that is going to look like a fool?” Varon asked.
As to how often he hears from a patient that believes if it worked for a celebrity or a person they know it will work for them? Varon says, “All the time.”
One recent case standing out for Varon and his team is one where they were met with disbelief during treatment.
“He still didn’t believe that COVID exists. He was there with COVID and he thought we were tricking him into an illness he didn’t have. He thought that his heart was acting up or something else,” Varon said.
As for the patient? Varon said he ended up dying.