As a physician, I have a hard time understanding post-truth politics. Wikipedia defines the post-truth culture as “a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored… . (It) differs from traditional contesting. … Falsifying of truth … (is viewed as) … of secondary importance.”
I live in a world where the absolute values of lab tests — such as INR levels (the international normalized ratio (INR) is calculated from the result of a prothrombin time (PT) test, which is used to help detect and diagnose a bleeding disorder or excessive clotting disorder; the INR is used to monitor how well a blood-thinning medication is working to prevent blood clots), ejection fractions (which measure the percentage of blood leaving the heart each time it contracts), creatinine levels (used to assess kidney function), and hemoglobin levels (hemoglobin is the substance in red blood cells that carries oxygen) — affect function, quality of life, and the potential life or death for my patients. I live in a world where, for my geriatric patients, the commonly accepted truth of gravity plays a huge role in falls. I spend much of my time as a geriatrician trying to prevent falls and treating the outcome of falls. In my 32 years of practice, I have seen how details of policy and falsifying of truth have tangible consequences.
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