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The Fauci Diaries: What Really Happened on the Front Lines? · Nurse Leadership Dumpster Fire

• speaker-0: Today on the channel, we're gonna talk about the eleven hundred plus page release of the Dr. Anthony Fauci Diaries from the Pandemic. speaker-1: We're also going to be talking about the Senate contempt votes and the massive disconnect in Washington, DC politics to what actually happened in the pandemic on the hospital. speaker-0: Just to be clear, we are not here to play politics. We are just gonna talk about what is being discussed at his trial and the hearings and what actually happened for nursing leadership and the frontline staff. speaker-1: We wanna talk about this from the perspective of the frontline nurse and nursing leadership. So the question is, did federal leadership fail the frontline staff or is Congress trying to rewrite history to make us think that that's what happened? speaker-0: Or is Congress rewriting history to ignore the reality of the nurses who lived it? So a quick recap of current events and what we mean when we say the contempt vote. During the discussions with Dr. Ann Anthony Fauci, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right several times. speaker-1: And the Senate recently voted holding him in contempt for doing that. As a response to the contempt vote, doctor Anthony Fauci dug out his diary notes that he took during the pandemic period, which included a thousand one hundred and forty one pages of his personal record notes. speaker-0: And just to be clear, those notes go from two thousand one all the way to two thousand twenty two. So it's more of a career journal that he kept. speaker-1: And when you read them, they they sound a lot more like a personal diary. They're definitely including his thoughts, but also an account of events. And it's been interesting to see the media's take on this because it's easy to see how he wasn't intending for these notes to be released to public use. They were meant for his own perception to be used in his memoir that he did release two years ago in twenty twenty four. speaker-0: But unfortunately, one of the things he did was use government equipment to take some of these notes. So they remained on government servers. So they were able to pull all those off of eleven different servers. So the top three accusations are the lab leak debate, the lockdown shift, and the media obsession. So first we're gonna talk about the lab leak debate and what we found about that. speaker-1: Public debate involves the private journal entries, top scientists, and early doubts about the natural origin of where the actual COVID nineteen virus started. speaker-0: So in Dr. Fauci's notes, one of the things he discussed was his ⁓ conversations he had with top scientists. And two of the twelve scientists were convinced about the virus coming about naturally, while the rest of the group felt that deliberate insertion was a possibility. Not that it was a for sure, but it was a possible thing, referring to the fact that it the virus could have been studied in a lab. He stated, we just couldn't let this go. speaker-1: think what's interesting about this whole concept though is that, you know, in the science world, it's normal to question and discuss and debate these types of things. And so what seems to me is happening right now is you're trying to have a clarity lens from six years ago of what was happening on the ground when people were just trying to say, Where did this start? What happened? But you know, you're looking at it as if we should have known better at the time. But at the time We were they didn't know. And this is the normal scientific process that you don't rule out any possibility. So hindsight's always twenty twenty, but there's a dichotomy going on because there was what was happening behind the scenes, which was the scientific debate. But then what Anthony Fauci was having to do for public security and to help ease the stress that was going on is he was having to say things in a very concrete way. ⁓ so he would say things more matter of fact on the camera. And so that's being highly scrutinized right now is that they're saying, ⁓ you said that you knew that it was a natural occurring, you know, and that it couldn't have possibly been created in a lab, but then they look at the notes and they're saying, But then you said, ⁓ but there was some debate about it. Now, whether he made the right decision or not, I mean, who's to say? But I could understand why a leader would say for the sake of trying to reduce the panic the panic and the stress of giving that reassurance so that it didn't escalate the situation further. speaker-0: So in addition to that note discussing what the scientists were having a conversation about, there was another note a few days later in his account where he talked to the Chinese CDC head, Dr. George Gao, and he said that asymptomatic people were transmitting the disease from what they found, identifying a specific Chinese woman that traveled to Germany who was asymptomatic but did end up transmitting the disease. speaker-1: So one of the notes from Anthony Fauci's diary references a Dr. Scott Atlas, who President Trump at the time brought into the discussion about what to do about the lockdown and how we were managing this as a country. And in his notes, he says that Dr. Atlas was asking him to open schools in red zones. He felt that children would not get sick. And he didn't believe in asymptomatic testing. And so he only wanted to test symptomatic people. And Anthony Fauci felt that this was a political move because the person who was making this recommendations was actually not an immunologist at all. He was a radiation oncologist. And so speaker-0: So he doesn't have the background in disease spreading and the centers for disease control. Mm-hmm. Radiation oncology is a highly specialized area in which you are delivering radiation to cancer patients in the hospital. speaker-1: So he wasn't a good source to actually be countering what Anthony Fauci was saying because Anthony Fauci has his entire history is built on immunology and infection prevention. Is he has a whole career that he had before the pandemic even happened. speaker-0: And this is all stemming from the lockdown shift where an entry from March twenty twenty stated that Bauchy directly telling New York leadership to shut down bars and schools, contrasting his later statements that he didn't dictate lockdowns. Whereas he's documenting that he did say they should shut those down because especially in the New York area where you're so close, and that was part of that lockdown shift debate the and discussion. The next Topic is the media obsession. A lot of people are stay saying, and probably rightfully so a little bit, that Anthony Fauci was obsessed with the media attention and the fame of his stuff. And I'm gonna go ahead and say there there is a little bit of that, I think. He had over 1400 mentions of media coverage. In that same sentence, though, the dichotomy of this one is where is the line between career progression and media obsession? Because In order to do things like his goal was to be possibly an NIH director at some point or wanting to win the Nobel Prize, so where is the line of speaker-1: Yeah, when you are a career motivated person, you really thrive on achievement and challenging yourself, which is a normal thing to see in a person in a leadership position, to where it becomes an obsession. And so, you know, none of us can really say, even from the notes, I think it's really difficult to determine if this is truly like pathological or not. ⁓ because I think any of us getting a lot of attention when we never got attention before could feel a little bit of, you know, that claim to fame. There's a lot of mention in his diary notes about meeting celebrities and getting really excited about that. And and that's also being criticized. But if I'm being honest, if I met a celebrity, I'd probably be fangirling as well. So I think what you're seeing a little bit here is a human being who's having human responses and is communicating those human responses in his diary and it's being scrutinized and A very malicious light. And while I'm not gonna say that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a perfect human, exactly. We don't we're not the ones to say that. But I have seen this in the past when people in leadership are making decisions and are being humans and having emotions and having experiences, and it's very hard. speaker-0: He made all the right decisions. Right. speaker-1: to stay out of the negative spotlight. It's there's always a subsect of people when you're in leadership who are going to criticize your decisions and the way that you show up and respond, no matter what kind of leader you speaker-0: you are. So now we kind of want to talk about the frontline perspective and what that looks like, not only right now, but what the perspective and experience was at the time, because we're gonna break that down and talk about the interesting experience we all had. speaker-1: Well, I think that we've talked about the negative media coverage that Dr. Fauci has received, but there's this other side of the media coverage that is the frontline staff who are have come out passionately protecting him, feeling that he was maybe their only advocate. On that same front, there are some frontline staff who feel very let down because there were some negative outcomes that happened due to some of the decisions that Dr. Fauci made. And we want to get into those. speaker-0: So first we wanna kind of talk about the trenches and what March twenty twenty really looked like for nurses and those frontline staff. The the chaos of putting people in body bags and the morgues filling up and using refrigerator containers, wearing garbage bags for PPE because we were running out. And we're using single N ninety fives for what, a week at a time? I remember writing my name on mine so that it didn't get mixed up with so and so. So not only am I risking myself for Vecture, but now I'm sharing a mask with somebody. I don't think so. speaker-1: Yeah. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, we were issued one N ninety five mask and we were told, You gotta make this last because we don't know when we're gonna get another mask for you. And many of us went out and bought respirators from Home Depot because we were like, Well, what if this mask doesn't work or if it breaks and I lose it? And so we wanted to have some other backup plan, even though that wasn't really scientifically based or C D C backed, but everyone was sort of just trying to scramble to use whatever protection they could find. ⁓ and that that was the reality of what was happening. speaker-0: So then we want to talk about the other aspect of nurses are are science based, most of us, right? We also have emotions and we're humans, and not every nurse is on the same page. But what we are defending is the fact that the shifting guidance is appropriate in the sense that that's what we saw with the virus changing as it evolved, which is a natural occurrence for any new virus that comes out. Just as if you look at the Spanish flu from the 1900s and how that evolved, it's very similar. And the response can only be what you have at the time. speaker-1: I think being a leader in twenty twenty would have had to have been one of the hardest years to be a leader. We actually didn't come into leadership. We I I started in leadership in twenty twenty one and I believe that part of the reason I got into leadership was because our leaders were dropping like flies because it just felt so stressful to have to make decisions to reassure everyone and you didn't know what was gonna happen. You didn't have any guidance or Scientific backing. You know, we were building the boat as we were trying to keep from drowning. speaker-0: Right. 'Cause as we were getting patient data and seeing things, things protocols were changing on the daily, every every day something changed. And as a leader trying to communicate that to your frontline staff while also trying to maintain and support them, yeah, I cannot imagine that dichotomy of the same thing that Dr. Fauci was under and that true dichotomy of yes, we shut down the country and yes, that caused a supply chain shortage, but did it reduce the spread? Do we know, still perfectly? speaker-1: Well, we don't have a control group to compare it to, right? And the shutdown didn't even go down perfectly. I think because you had such a political divide happening and there was different leaders were saying different things, and depending on where you lived in the country, it was being heavily enforced or not enforced at all. And so whether or not the shutdown actually scientifically did reduce the spread is impossible to say. Yeah. speaker-0: So basically what the n nursing frontline experience was while all of the chaos in the White House was occurring or up in the upper level leadership, Dr. Fauci took daily press briefings, providing a voice of stability for those of us that were desperate for any direction. We didn't know. And he was the person that all information was being funneled up to and through. And he was communicating with national and international leaders that were also experiencing this in real time. speaker-1: I think from my personal perspective, one thing I do remember about watching Anthony Fauci on these news presses was that he was unwaveringly calm. And I think when we were feeling so scared because we just didn't know what we were dealing with, we didn't understand it. I mean, I shaved side of the side of my head because I didn't know if the hairs coming out of my cap were going to cause me to carry home an infection I was living with my mom and I didn't want to get my mom sick because she was in the age bracket that was getting, you know, deathly ill and people were dying. And so we all did sort of dramatic things. And so having the one person in the government who was at least standing at the podium having a calm demeanor felt a little bit reassuring at that time. speaker-0: Yeah. And I think the biggest frustration that we're experiencing now is that we're we're litigating and and diving into these notes of his, looking for a way to blame him when in reality they're ignoring the fact that they didn't ensure supply chains were ⁓ able to deliver us at the front line the tools we needed. It was like they completely are overlooking our entire experience. And I think that's why so many nurses that did experience the frontline side of it. There are some nurses out there that didn't see that and they may have a completely different experience, but we were ICU nurses and I was an ICU nurse at two hospitals. And I can tell you it was real. speaker-1: Also, I think the perspective of having been a frontline nurse during COVID and being a nurse manager during COVID as well is we saw both sides of that experience as the frontline nurse and in leadership trying to help calm the stresses and provide reassurances. speaker-0: So being a bedside nurse and you going into leadership at the end, when you are from your perspective as a nurse leader and as a leader just like Fauci was a leader, when you make a decision trying to get staff and and ⁓ the country and people safe, what was that experience like? speaker-1: Well, I think, you know, we were given this direction ⁓ where everyone was told to go inside, but healthcare workers had to keep coming to work. And so this decision was made at the at the top of our executive leadership of our country to shut down all business activity. But nursing staff and doctors and respiratory therapy, you know, all of our healthcare primary care workers had to keep coming to work. But that shutdown left us without the supplies that we needed to safely care for these patients. And so I can understand how when you make a decision sometimes thinking that it's the right thing to do, that there might be a side effect consequence that happens. But the unfortunate part about this whole thing is that that negative side effect directly impacted the people who were trying to fight the battle at the front line. And I don't know That that has actually been addressed. speaker-0: Right. And I think what is happening is we're we're attacking his ⁓ decisions without actually looking at how the full impact. And when with science you only have so much information and you're you're kind of trying to make decisions with the limited information that you have. So let's go into the next phase of the frontline critique. Let's be a little bit more involved in the mask mixed messages, the top down mandates, the bedside reality and the accountability void that we wanted to kind of really dive into a little bit more. Yeah. speaker-1: So the mask miss mixed message. So this is where this whole thing got so politically divided. Where you had Dr. Anthony Fauci who was saying one thing, the CDC was kind of saying another thing. And then the president of the United States and his administration was saying something different. And this created such chaos on the front lines. Yes. You know, we believed as healthcare workers, because we're taught basic immunology, basic ⁓ infection prevention. And, you know, before COVID nineteen was a thing, we knew that specific types of viruses we could prevent the spread by using certain kinds of devices, including N ninety five masks and and gowns and goggles. ⁓ you know, that's how we were already addressing certain viruses like tuberculosis and flu virus and speaker-0: And P P E. any viruses. I mean, there's a various like bacterial infections or whatever. There's guidelines on how to prevent the spread of those infections. So staying in alignment with how we prevent the spread of other infections, they're like, use masks because that seems like a logical thing to do. And the other thing was the six foot distance. Which one was more scientifically ⁓ proven? speaker-1: The masks for sure were scientifically proven, but the s the six foot distance apparently and I did not even know that until we were researching for this video. speaker-0: Yeah. I totally thought it was something scientific that they knew. Yeah. And I wonder if the six foot thing came about because of the political charge around masks. And masks aren't perfect, right? Well you're still gonna get some infections, but it's gonna be reduced. So the purpose of that situation is to talk about the reality that it wasn't actually real for the six foot thing, but was that their way to bridge the gap for those that wouldn't wear a mask? speaker-1: Yeah, and or the fact that we didn't have enough masks, you know, because there was other things that were recommended at the time that we knew were not scientifically based. For example, the CDC at one point said, if you can't get hands on a mask, wear a bandana around your face. And so you had all these conflicting messages where you're like, like, as scientists, we knew that the best practice was to wear an N95 mask and the rest of your PPE. But speaker-0: Which also is not proven. speaker-1: Other people who don't have that scientific background are now interpreting that, ⁓ a bandana is good enough or standing six feet apart is good enough when there was actually no scientific background. But because that was the message that was being sent down, it actually influenced the SOPs and our processes on the front lines. And the six foot distance was problematic because it actually affected our ability to do our jobs. speaker-0: I mean, lying to the public destroyed the clinical credibility at the bedside. So now we were trying to battle other people's experiences or their interpretation of the information rather than supplying us with ⁓ people that we're trying to follow and work with people. So that was that was really impactful as a bedside nurse trying to convince some of our patients that were really sick, that they actually were sick. speaker-1: Well, and then I remember because we also limited the visitation, which was a whole nother layer of COVID, was the difficulty of people being able to come and see their loved ones when they were critically ill and dying, and that was a whole other issue. But there was a time during this that we were allowing limited visitation. And I remember one particular incident that really stands out to me in my head. We had on our ICU unit, because we were a combined medical surgical unit. We had one patient who was prone, paralyzed, and probably gonna die from COVID nineteen. In the room next door, we had a patient who had just had an open heart surgery. And he had a family member who was visiting. ⁓ was given their s their small window of time. I think they were allowed to come in f an hour of time. And she would refuse to wear a mask. ⁓ she would refuse to stay in the room. And I remember at one point she was walking in the hallway near the nurses station and she was talking on the phone to somebody and I heard her say something about the pandemic and all the restrictions and how frustrating they were. And I thought, how short-sighted, there is a person literally in the room next to your brother who is going to die because of the virus that you don't believe in. And it was so frustrating because you obviously like can't tell her. speaker-0: Short sight of speaker-1: Ma'am, that man right over there is dying for the virus that you don't believe in because I mean that's HIPAA, so you can't. Right. But it was just like watching this, it was just it was like living in an alternate reality. speaker-0: Yeah. So we just wanted to mention like how the top down mandates versus like being at the bedside really impacted us, like these rigid unscientific rules like the six foot thing and how it all trickled down into our hospital policy, making our jobs harder without actually adding safety for our patients and our staff and our visitors. speaker-1: So the last thing I think we wanted to talk about is this accountability void. So you have one group of politicians who are really scrutinizing Anthony Fauci right now. And I'm not gonna say whether it it's right or wrong, you know, and what whether he made the right decisions or the wrong decisions. But there is one thing that is apparent, which is that he is getting all of the heat while nobody else in federal leadership is being held under the same microscope as Dr. Fauci is. And speaker-0: Hello. speaker-1: there for sure were other elements going on that were influencing that you had political parties who don't have any scientific experience and background who were trying to influence the way that we were handling the pandemic that created this massive confusion, just like what I just talked about with this one person in the hospital who was completely oblivious to the reality of what was happening, even though it was literally right in front of her. speaker-0: Oblivion speaker-1: And none of that has been brought to the surface. speaker-0: And I want to bring this also back to HRO themes, and that's deference to expertise. And I think we failed as a system, as a country, we failed to defer to the expertise. Whether it was right or wrong, we could fight about that all day. But at the same time, had we just deferred and followed one set of instructions, I think we would have seen a lot less chaos. But there's no accountability for the rest of that. We're only looking at one person, even though that isn't what the reality was for the rest of us. speaker-1: Was a whole organization of people who were fighting against each other. And that came through all the way down to the front line and affected people in their daily lives. And that's when you see a divided leadership team. Like this is a great example of when you have a leadership team who's not on the same page and how that can create such systemic pandemonium and chaos. speaker-0: Yes. And all of this is just stemming from the pardon that was issued to Doctor Fau Fauci in January of twenty twenty five as the presidents have switched around. speaker-1: Another feature of HRO that I think was missing here and is currently missing is the fact that it's really meant to look at the system and and where the breakdown happened and what the root cause analysis is. HRO is not about placing blame on one person or another because usually when negative outcomes happen, it's a multitude of things. It's the Swiss cheese holes that occur. And if you're truly doing high reliability, you should be looking at where those holes were, going back to the root cause analysis to then try to identify what you can do in the future to prevent it. Right. And we are not doing that as a nation right now. speaker-0: So we're not doing the system evaluation. We're doing we're a targeting a person rather than taking an ⁓ an accountability and saying, How can we make sure that this doesn't happen in the future? Rather, we're like, ⁓ it's just his fault. speaker-1: Yes. And that I think is the biggest take home for me as a leader is that we are seeing an an example of what we do not want to be doing in leadership. speaker-0: Right. True leadership requires transparency. And transparency is working together as a team and not allowing a political theater to overshadow what is actually happening on the front line and what we really need as as the people that are involved. speaker-1: Yes. And I think in leadership you're going to see political dynamics swing and influence, but it's really important for us in leadership to try to control that narrative and make sure that we are is continuing to look at things from a place of curiosity and assuming good intention. When we start assuming negative intentions, we go down the rabbit hole and we make bad decisions that have negative outcomes that don't actually solve problems. speaker-0: Right. So really we just want to know like did you work during the pandemic? Were you a leader during the pandemic? What was your experience? ⁓ and what do you think is happening? Do you feel Dr. Fauci represented you? Or do you feel like he completely failed you? Or do you feel like we as a whole country failed? What is your experience? Let's talk about it in the comments or reach out to us. ⁓ we're really interested in hearing about your guys' experience. And just to be clear, we don't we don't know. Is he wrong or is he right? Did he do the right thing or the wrong thing? Yeah. That's the true paradox of the whole story. speaker-1: Well, we hope that this breakdown from a nurse leader's perspective and a frontline nurse's perspective is helpful in looking at what actually happened then and what's happening right now because I think it's still continuing to be very confusing about what happened during the pandemic and what the dynamics of the political arena right now are. So thanks for listening and like and subscribe and hit that bell so that you can continue to hear more episodes from us.