Dr. Stella Immanuel Haters Break a Sacred Code and Reveal a Harsh Reality About Healthcare
By Paul Dohse STNA/MA-C
I am an Ohio STNA and have worked for many nurses in a lot of different situations. Along the way, I have rubbed shoulders with a lot of Nurse Practitioners and doctors as well. What do I love most about being an STNA? That’s hard to say. I love serving nurses and helping them increase their care volume. I can get self-satisfaction from my own task, but also know that I share part of what the nurse is able to accomplish as well.
Even though I used the letter “I” as a pronoun referring to myself six times in the first paragraph, a literary no, no, another great thing about being an STNA follows: in healthcare, it’s not about the “I” and all about delivering care. Healthcare is truly unique: in the vast majority of cases, there is a unity and commonality in one goal; improving the health of others and even saving lives. This is because we all work under a common standard and focus. The standard unites us. It is a sacred code.
With that said, it’s impossible to totally hide the fact that many nurses, doctors, and aides are a hot mess. Fact is, mortality would quadruple times ten if a healthcare professional’s personal life was directly proportional to their ability to deliver care. Healthcare professionals have an uncanny ability to compartmentalize.
As an STNA, I work with all kinds and then some. It doesn’t matter, to completely dichotomize personal preferences, religion, and politics from care is a sacred code, not only for those part of the care team, but for the patients and residents. No self-respecting healthcare professional would suggest that their opinion of someone would diminish the care being delivered.
I have read several posts lately written by nurses boasting about giving anti-maskers and anti-lockdown patients the same care they would give anyone. Well, aren’t they special? First of all, it’s none of their business what that person is, and the mere musing about it makes them all sorry excuses for being a nurse or a doctor. In LTC, we care for many people who wish they had one to do over; specifically, a bad decision that made them an invalid the rest of their lives. It’s our job to lessen the regret by making the life that is now their realty better, not by judging them to make ourselves look better in the mirror.
Recently, Dr. Stella Immanuel shared her experience treating COVID patients at a doctors summit in Washington DC. Many did not want to hear her testimony. The responses added to the realization that many doctors and nurses do bring politics and religion into their healthcare practices. Unfortunately, my personal experience in healthcare is not the reality as much as I want it to be.
As I read posts and comments that totally disregarded the medical experiences of her practice, I was horrified and disillusioned. The number of people who were helped by her care was completely irrelevant, while the only thing that mattered is her eccentric (by American standards) religious beliefs. Insanely, this was also used to discredit the whole summit. You want to hear something really scary? People with that kind of logic may be treating you at a hospital.
Wanting to be well informed for this post, I watched the sermon cited that she preached at a (I would assume) Charismatic church, and indeed, I would question many of her statements on a theological basis. On the other hand, I really liked her hat and dress and doubt that many in the audience were bored like most of the sermons I suffered through in Baptist churches.
Just a thought: she has her gender figured out and I have worked with aides and nurses who don’t. And, I don’t spend an eight or twelve hour shift trying to figure out whether they are male or female, I get past that in the first few minutes and put the focus where it belongs. And by the way, I have never worked with a trans that is not a good aide or nurse. If they weren’t, that matters; nothing else.
This is a matter of patient/resident trust; if they have to worry about who they are or what they believe, they worry for good reason and anyone who projects that fear upon them is unfit to be in healthcare. And as healthcare professionals, we are unfit if we project prejudices between us except where a true heart for care is missing.
If Stella Immanuel misrepresented her practice experience treating COVID with hydroxychloroquine, I am listening. But if you are judging her credibility and ability based on her religious beliefs, you are utterly unfit to be in healthcare.
Not only do you break a sacred code, but you demolish one of the few places on earth where people are united for what is arguably the highest virtue this side of heaven.
Link to video excerpt 8: Medical Summit on COVID 19.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Exactly! And to use the other side standards, I was even more amused that they worked so hard to dismiss a black female doctor.
As someone who has grown up around the mission world, charismatic Africans is nothing new but quite the normal. They even have them at Southern seminary right now.
A few months ago I came across the president of Tanzania speech about covid. He did an experiment with the labs and found that they were sending back positive results on goats and mangoes. He doesn’t trust Bill Gates, the WHO, China, etc. He said he does not know if it’s the testing swabs from China that are corrupted or their labs. He also touched upon natural remedies including prayer. Of course he’s not a doctor or a medical provider but a leader who finds himself caught in a horrible situation of distrust from all the outside people who supposedly want to “help”.
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