Wellness Unmasked Weekly Rundown: Dr. Casey Means Hearing Breakdown: Can She Be America’s Doctor?
2/26/20268 mincomplete
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0:33Welcome to Wellness Unmasked. I'm Dr.
0:36Nicole Sapphire, and this is your weekly rundown.
0:38Well, for all of you in the Northeast who had a blizzard earlier this week,
0:42hope everyone made it unscathed, didn't have any pipes bursting or any of those consequences
0:48that can happen with the freezing temperatures.
0:50I personally had a wonderful time because I had all of my family home.
0:55My husband was even home.
0:57He didn't have to go in for an emergency surgery.
1:00My oldest son came over, and we just had a family snow day.
1:04And it was a lot of cooking.
1:05It was a lot of board games.
1:07And then we went out and played in the snow.
1:09I was happy as can be because my happy place is being home, surrounded by
1:15my family. And I certainly got that.
1:16I hope you were able to get some quality time with your family, too, with
1:20the snow or wherever you are.
1:22So what's been going on this week?
1:24Well, I can tell you one thing that I was keeping my eye on is
1:27the Senate confirmation hearing for Dr.
1:30Casey Means for the role of Surgeon General.
1:33She is the current President Trump nominee for Surgeon General.
1:36Quick recap for those not up to date.
1:39She is the second nomination.
1:41The first nomination for Surgeon General last year, President Trump withdrew the nomination.
1:47That was Dr. Jeanette Neshwat, who I knew as a friend and colleague from Fox
1:51News. She's a lovely person inside and out.
1:54She does a lot of volunteer work and but her nomination was withdrawn and in
2:00her place was put Dr.
2:02Casey Means, who is the sister of Callie Means, who is a White House advisor.
2:09So I did watch the Senate confirmation hearing leading up to the confirmation hearing.
2:14There was some buzz, you know, the usual buzz whenever there's a nominee.
2:18You know, obviously there's a huge amount of people for her, specifically the Maha crowd.
2:23And then, of course, you always expect there to be the other side giving the
2:27counterpoint as well. So what I have seen, you know, the the true MAGA crowd,
2:32very upset that, you know, she didn't actually practice medicine during COVID and she hasn't
2:38spoken out against the COVID vaccines.
2:40So they aren't her biggest fans.
2:43And they're also the medical professionals.
2:45And obviously, as a physician, I can speak to this opinion.
2:49Dr. Casey Means, extremely intelligent individual.
2:53She I don't know. I don't have her CV in front of me, but I
2:56think she went to Stanford undergrad or maybe Stanford medical school.
3:01She did well there. She got a head and neck residency.
3:04I think somewhere in the northwest, maybe Oregon.
3:07The big criticism, though, is she never completed her residency and she said it was
3:13because she didn't want to be a part of traditional medicine and she wanted to
3:17go off and, I guess, focus on metabolic health or I don't even know what
3:21her reasons is. To be honest, I haven't followed it that closely.
3:24But the problem that medical professionals have is she didn't complete her residency.
3:29She doesn't have an active medical license.
3:32And so she's never actually really treated patients in her specialty unsupervised.
3:40And so that's the biggest criticism.
3:42And while people are like, well, what does that matter?
3:44I guess it's kind of like, if you think about it, having an attorney general
3:48who never passed the bar exam.
3:51It doesn't mean that they're not a brilliant attorney.
3:53They can't go and start some billion dollar company or be an entrepreneur or whatever.
4:00But to be the nation's lawyer probably should, you know, have the bar exam and
4:06active legal license or something.
4:09And so that's what they're saying about her and Surgeon General.
4:11She doesn't even have an active medical license to practice medicine.
4:14Didn't complete her training. How can she be the quote unquote nation's doctor?
4:18What's my personal opinion? I said, I understand.
4:21I kind of feel the same way about not completing residency.
4:25Maybe that ages me. Maybe that makes me sound like a curmudgeon.
4:28Like, well, why couldn't she have finished residency?
4:30I had to finish residency.
4:32So I kind of, you know, I kind of feel that way too.
4:36But is it that huge of a deal?
4:38I don't really know. If you think about this Surgeon General role, it's a very
4:41important role because it is the nation's doctor.
4:44The biggest skill that this person needs is they need to be able to effectively
4:48communicate with the public, public health messaging.
4:51But even more important than that, they need the respect of not only the people,
4:57the American people that they are communicating to, but they also need the respect of
5:01the administration for which they are working together with to get that research and put
5:06out the messaging. And also the medical professionals, the medical organizations, they need to make
5:12sure that she is a trusted messenger.
5:15So I think one of the biggest complaints is, again, medical professionals saying, we don't
5:20really trust her. Watching the hearing today, there were no...
5:24major moments. There were a few little bickering back and forth.
5:28There weren't any major got -you moments, in my opinion.
5:32I've seen a lot of these Senate hearings, and trust me, they can get pretty
5:35heated. This was not really one of them.
5:38You know, there were some back and forth when it came to birth control, vaccines.
5:42Surprisingly, the COVID vaccine never came up once.
5:45I was kind of surprised in that.
5:46I thought they were going to try and ask her opinion on it.
5:48They did not. And I think she gave some great answers to some questions, some
5:54not -so -great answers on other questions.
5:56Ultimately, I think she's going to get through just fine.
5:58I can't really imagine them not voting her in.
6:01You know, the Republicans, as long as the Republicans don't deviate, she's going to get
6:05in. I think it'll be an uphill battle for the administration if she is in
6:10that role, because right now they still have a messaging problem, and we're trying to
6:15bridge that gap of public health trust.
6:18And I'm not sure if she's the person to bridge that gap.
6:22Again, not because, you know, she's a very intelligent person.
6:25It's just that she's very much aligned with the Maha movement.
6:28And I'd really like to see a little bit more reaching across the aisle when
6:33it comes to public health.
6:34That doesn't mean it has to be some Democratic nominee for Surgeon General, maybe just
6:38someone a little less aligned with the Maha movement who, I don't know, finished their
6:43residency and has an active medical license.
6:45I mean, maybe if you just check those boxes, you'll get the support from some
6:49of the critics that we're seeing online.
6:51I don't really know. I think she's going to get confirmed.
6:54I think she's going to do a good job.
6:55She's a new mom. They had to do a little breastfeeding break today.
6:58And I kind of love seeing that because you know me, I always promote breastfeeding.
7:03So bottom line, I anticipate they are going to vote her in.
7:07She will be our new Surgeon General.
7:09And I'll let you know next week.
7:10If you follow me on social media, you'll see it before then.
7:14But I hope everyone's having a great week.
7:15And I have an excellent guest for next week's podcast.
7:18I can't wait for you to hear it.
7:22We're going to break down the State of the Union address, what they were talking
7:26about when it came to the health care stuff.
7:28What's the future of the Affordable Care Act?
7:30Are these premiums going to go up?
7:32Everyone was saying they're going to.
7:33Are they going to actually go up?
7:35Talk about the Maha movement.
7:36And we're going to talk about potentially the new Surgeon General.
7:39So tune in next week.
7:41I'm Dr. Nicole Sapphire. This has been Wellness Unmasked, your weekly rundown.
7:45Be sure to listen to Wellness Unmasked on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
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