Daniel Dvorkin<p>I am a <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/medic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>medic</span></a>. If you know nothing else about me, know that.</p><p>Whatever happens, wherever you are, whoever you are—call me and I will come for you. That's what medics do. That's what we are.</p><p>Mostly.</p><p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/05/21/nx-s1-5387723/cdc-communications-cuts-social-media-public-health" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">npr.org/2025/05/21/nx-s1-53877</span><span class="invisible">23/cdc-communications-cuts-social-media-public-health</span></a></p><p>I've made my living many other ways over the decades. <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/Infantry" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Infantry</span></a>, <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a>, <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/web" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>web</span></a> development, <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/database" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>database</span></a> administration, <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/teaching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>teaching</span></a>, <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/clinicaltrials" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>clinicaltrials</span></a>, <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/bioinformatics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>bioinformatics</span></a>. Maybe one of these days writing again, for more than a few months this time. All of them have shaped me to one degree or another.</p><p>They're all things I did, all part of who I am. Medic is what I am. If you're lucky enough to have your own "what" as well as "who" ... well, you understand.</p><p>Until World War One, more <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/soldiers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>soldiers</span></a> in every war died of <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/disease" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>disease</span></a> than of <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/injuries" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>injuries</span></a> received on the <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/battlefield" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>battlefield</span></a>. The decreasing death toll of modern wars (you can look it up) is directly due, in large part, to advances in military public health. Those advances travel both ways, back and forth between the military and civilian worlds, preserving life all the while.</p><p><a href="https://qoto.org/tags/Epidemiology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Epidemiology</span></a> and <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/immunology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>immunology</span></a> and <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/biostatistics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>biostatistics</span></a> and <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/environmental" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>environmental</span></a> <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/medicine" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>medicine</span></a> aren't TV fodder, generally speaking. It's hard to make them look glamorous. They're just the reason you're alive to read these words.</p><p><a href="https://qoto.org/tags/PublicHealth" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PublicHealth</span></a>, taken as a whole, is unquestionably the greatest advance in medical history. Nothing else even comes close. Arguably it's the greatest advance in history, period, with no qualifiers needed.</p><p>Deliberately breaking it is mass <a href="https://qoto.org/tags/murder" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>murder</span></a>.</p><p>I am a medic. I am also a human being. The alleged human beings responsible for this monstrosity, if they ever call me, will call in vain.</p>