John's Credentials

 

To those who disagree with any aspect of my medical or scientific posts on Facebook, most notably during the COVID Pandemic, I will redirect you to this post. I will not be responding to any comments on this post. It will serve as a reference for me.

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I could make an “appeal to authority” argument and ask them what medical school they went to, or what degrees they have, or how many clinical trials they have developed. But this doesn’t prove the other person wrong. It might make an audience side with the one who has the highest degree, but it just makes the other person feel belittled.

I could make an “appeal to experience”argument and ask them how many COVID patients they have treated, or how many COVID patients they have intubated, or how many times they have held a stranger in their arms while the stranger was sobbing and could barely stand because they told that stranger their loved one was dead. But this doesn’t prove them wrong, it just makes readers think the other person doesn’t have the experience to participate in the discussion, and it attempts to humiliate the other person into silence.

I could try to mock or shame them about basing possible life and death decisions for themselves or their children on YouTube data and google degrees. But this doesn’t actually prove a person wrong, even it it might make them doubt their knowledge foundation just a little bit.

In reality, I hate how social media makes us feel about each other.

I hate how social media makes me now believe that the other person THINKS they have “gotten the better” of me just because, for example, some third person also did not like my comparing medication safety data collection to automobile safety data collection.

(I think about a half-ton hunk of metal hurling down a road at 70 miles per hour with a family strapped inside of it... while the driver checks their phone messages... while we know that automobile accidents kill over 38,000 people each year in the United States alone... and understanding that the science of statistics doesn’t change whether it’s a human or an automobile...

So yes, I still think it’s a valid comparison.)

But at the same time, I also hate how social media makes that other person think I could equate the sanctity of a human life to a hunk of metal.

My life proves this to be untrue... but you don’t know my life.

So this is me.

I am ecstatically married to my high school sweetheart for over 20 years, and we have four children whom I love more than almost anything.

I have an art degree from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. I was a graphic designer and ran my own business for 5 years.

I became disillusioned with western/modern medicine due to an experience my wife had, and I read everything I could about her condition and the problems of modern medicine. I had good intentions, but I was an idiot... one who thought he knew things but didn’t have a clue about what I didn’t know or even comprehended was in existence.

I thought hard about becoming a naturopathic physician.

I earned a biology degree from Western Kentucky University. During this education, I realized that while there is a lot of truth in alternative and complementary medicine, there is also a lot of bad science and quackery.

I decided to become as legitimate a physician as possible and then incorporate alternative therapies into my own practice.

I have a medical degree from the Mayo Clinic.

I served in the United States Air Force as a physician for seven years while living overseas for four years.

I am an emergency medicine physician, and I am the co-medical director of an emergency department in East Tennessee.

Incorporating alternative medicine into my practice was as difficult as my chiropractor friend warned me, especially under the current medical system, but I haven’t lost all hope yet.

In addition to being a full-time physician, my wife and I run a small permaculture homestead and farm.

I am also an environmentalist.

And most cherished, I am a Christian.

But I don’t know your life.

Or I know very little of it.

Because of social media, we make brief but bold assessments about who the other person is, and we respond in ways that are so different than if we were having a conversation over a mug of coffee or a couple bottles of beer in person.

Ultimately, I hate how social media provides confirmation from within an echo chamber that may emotionally validate a person’s position while keeping them ignorant to the truth.

I don’t have the time or energy OR desire to engage every person who wants to argue with me within a social media format.

And yet, with good intentions, I keep throwing myself into the fray of social media and subjecting myself to more comments that reinforce the cycle of which I despise being a part.

I am not looking to win a debate.

I am not trying to outsmart you.

I don’t want to humiliate or embarrass or shame you.

If you disagree with me, please, for yourself, do so with logical criticism of your own argument as well. And I will continue to do the same.

As for me, I desire truth.

And I desire to share truth in love and in mercy and grace.

Godspeed.

John Kitsteiner, MD