Utah doctor goes viral with tweet about her chronic illness and threat of COVID-19
Feb 2, 2022, 1:26 PM | Updated: Jun 13, 2022, 3:48 pm
SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah doctor took to Twitter to highlight living with a chronic illness during a pandemic, and it’s gone viral.
Sarah Bernstein, 35, said she felt conflicted at work as a doctor who treats young patients and mothers with high-risk pregnancies and in her personal life dealing with her own health challenges.
She tweeted about it and discovered she’s not alone.
Bernstein is a doctor at University of Utah Health and assistant professor for the division of neonatology.
She tweeted about a heart condition that puts her at risk for serious complications from COVID-19 and invited others to show what their chronic illness looks like.
Hi, I’m Sarah. I’m 35 and a doctor. I also have a heart condition that puts me at an increased risk for serious complications from covid. #IHaveAPreexistingCondition – Does the face of #chronicIllness look different than you thought? pic.twitter.com/RCfyEBnyqm
— Sarah Bernstein, MD, MHA, FAAP (@sbernsteinmd) January 24, 2022
“I have heard from so many people saying they felt really alone and isolated through all of this,” Bernstein said.
Many people revealed the pain of living with an invisible illness during a pandemic.
“I loved the fact when people started sharing it wasn’t just people who looked like me,” she explained.
Others revealed their lack of empathy. “The underlying message is that their life is less important than other people.”
Bernstein said treating healthy children who got very ill with COVID-19 and watching mothers die showed the pandemic is far from over.
“Making comments like this is no big deal, or it’s a cold this is really mild,” she said. “When you see the human side of it and how it’s impacting families, I think there are very few people who would still take that stance.”
With 60,000 likes and nearly 8,500 retweets, Bernstein hoped her message would spread and we can all be a little kinder to one another.