It had been another grueling weekend for doctors and staff battling to save COVID patients at Beaumont Hospital in Troy. People gasping for breath, some dying. Patients’ panic mixed with bewilderment and grief..

But a series of troubling interactions this past weekend triggered something powerful inside Trunsky. Maybe it was the long hours. But mostly, he said, it was the unending thicket of misinformation and conspiracy theories he was hearing from patients who had not been vaccinated, many of them critically ill..

6) “I didn’t take it because my son told me it would kill me.” (The patient is currently fighting for his life — in fact it was the son‘s advice that may kill him.).

And with a click of a button, Trunsky — a specialist in pulmonology, critical care and hospice and palliative care — joined the growing ranks of U.S.

health care workers who are publicly venting their exasperation with the unvaccinated, who comprise the vast majority of COVID patients in hospital emergency rooms and ICU’s.  .

They didn’t get vaccinated,” Trunsky told Bridge Michigan in an interview about his Facebook post.

Indeed, Beaumont Health announced Wednesday that all 10 emergency rooms in its system were nearing capacity — not just with COVID, but with patients suffering from other conditions who had delayed getting care during the pandemic. .

Trunsky said he wants to be clear: Doctors and hospital staff are working just as hard to treat unvaccinated patients as those who received vaccines. .

Doctors and nurses may ask a patient why they are unvaccinated, he said, but  “you don't want to go in with a chip on your shoulder, ready to say, ‘You're stupid.’”.

Medical ethicists and those who track physician well-being said unvaccinated patients pose a particular strain on hospital workers. .

Trunsky told Bridge he feels guilty for having these feelings, but added they do not extend to every unvaccinated patient. .

I've already talked to my friends and family telling them to (get vaccinated),’ — it just makes it easier to care for them,” he said.

She was breastfeeding at the time, and still not comfortable with it, Trunsky said.

“He’s just not going to live if he goes home,” Trunsky said

Or the wife of a COVID patient who threatened to call her attorney if doctors did not immediately order up ivermectin, a deworming drug that, in humans, is used to treat some parasitic worms, head lice and skin conditions

Trunsky said multiple patients argued with him about peer-review research relating to COVID, citing conspiracy theories they had read about on social media or formulated on their own

1, he will no longer see patients who are not vaccinated against COVID

In South Florida, another doctor announced last week she will no longer treat unvaccinated patients in-person

“It’s highly preventable,” Trunsky said of the virus, “and it’s lethal.”  

What Trunsky is feeling is a “moral injury,” Sean Valles, director and associate professor of the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice at Michigan State University, said of the doctor’s Facebook sentiments

At Spectrum Health Zeeland Community Hospital, respiratory therapist Kari Thoreson has spent much of the past year and a half intubating the sickest COVID patients

While doctors tell themselves they treat all patients alike, subtle behavioral differences that can seep into patient care. 

Trunsky told Bridge that since he wrote the post Saturday, some of the patients he referenced have died, despite “exceptional care” delivered by Beaumont’s team. 

He said that last patient told him, “If it’s God's time for me, then it's God's time for me