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Samantha Putterman
By Samantha Putterman August 25, 2021

No, doctors in South Florida did not walk off the job or protest while patients needed care

If Your Time is short

  • A group of about 75 doctors from multiple hospitals in South Florida held a news conference to encourage community members to get vaccinated and wear masks.

  • The event was not a protest or a walkout. It took place around 6 a.m., before office hours, and physicians who attended either came before the start of their shifts or after, doctors who participated told PolitiFact. Local hospital officials confirmed there was no delay in patient care.

See the sources for this fact-check

It’s no secret that Florida is in the middle of its most serious outbreak of the pandemic. The state is averaging around 150,000 new COVID-19 cases per week as of mid-August, and nearly 16,900 people in the state are hospitalized with the disease.

In response to the dire situation, a group of doctors from multiple hospitals in South Florida held a news conference to urge people in the community to get vaccinated and wear masks.

"We are all here together with one simple message that can save your life: please go get vaccinated and wear a mask," Dr. Jennifer Buczyner, a neurologist who organized the event, said Aug. 23. "A large majority of hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated. Many of these patients have decided not to get vaccinated but when they are hospitalized they tell us they wish they had."

But misleading headlines and social media posts sought to undermine the group’s message by falsely claiming that the physicians had "walked off" the job in "protest" while patients needed their care and suffered. 

"75 doctors in #SouthFlorida walkout in protest as their hospital is flooded with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients," read one post shared widely on Instagram.

Conservative show host Dan Bongino said in a Facebook video that he was "disgusted" by the doctors and that he "strongly recommends" that they leave the profession.

Featured Fact-check

The posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed (read more about our partnership with Facebook), and both used a misleading clip from MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" to illustrate their point. 

The network covered the conference the morning it occurred, but inaccurately referred to it as a walk out, displaying an on-screen chyron that read: "SOUTH FLORIDA DOCTORS WALK OUT IN PROTEST." 

(Screengrab from Facebook)
 
The event was neither a protest nor a walkout.
 
The news conference, held shortly after 6 a.m. outside a doctor’s office in Palm Beach Gardens, purposely took place before office hours. Physicians who participated either came before the start of their shifts or after, doctors who participated told PolitiFact. Local hospital officials confirmed there was no delay in patient care.
 
The following morning, "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski attempted to clarify that doctors didn’t walk off their jobs for the conference.
 
"In yesterday's report we referred to the doctors' event as a simulated walk out," Brzezinski said, "and we learned afterwards many thought that that meant the doctors left patients unattended. Doctors wouldn't do that. They're committed, even when they're pushed to these extremes by people who do not choose to get the vaccine. Those doctors gathered either before going on shift or after working a long shift…" MSNBC declined to comment for this fact-check.
 
By then, social media users and other news organizations already picked up on the terminology and repeated it, with many claiming falsely that doctors had withheld treatment from unvaccinated patients.
 
"One of my colleagues has gotten death threats," Buczyner, who is the stroke director for Jupiter Medical Center, told PolitiFact in a phone interview. "We were likened to Nazis injecting poison into people. I’ve received multiple negative reviews on our business pages saying that we should lose our licenses because we were refusing to treat unvaccinated people, which is completely not true."
 
PolitiFact reviewed the email invitation sent to doctors for the news conference, which encouraged local medical professionals to attend a "Community ‘Get Vaccinated’" event. It said its purpose was to "encourage our community to get vaccinated and take this seriously." Nowhere in the email do the words "protest" or "walkout" appear.
 
Shelly Weiss Friedberg, public relations director at Tenet Healthcare, which operates Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, confirmed in an email that the conference was not a hospital event, or a walkout. It was held before office hours so it wouldn’t interfere with patient visits, she said.
 
Buczyner said the event was over by 7:15 a.m.
 
"This was not something that was occurring during normal business hours," Buczyner said. "People were either coming off of their shifts, or were there before their shifts. I specifically said that we were there before going to our offices and operating rooms."

She said the misleading reports came "at the expense of a very caring medical community who attempted to come out with a very heartfelt message.Frankly, it was insulting to us all," she said.

Our ruling

Social media posts claim that about 75 doctors in South Florida walked out in protest as their hospital was overrun with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients.

This is wrong. 

The event was an early-morning news conference to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations and mask-wearing. It wasn’t a protest or a walkout. The doctors who participated either came before the start of their shifts, or after. 

We rate this False. 

Read About Our Process

The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter

Our Sources

Instagram post, Aug. 23, 2021

Facebook post, Aug. 24, 2021

MSNBC Morning Joe, Aug. 23, 2021

MSNBC Morning Joe transcript, Aug. 24, 2021

Palm Beach Post, 'The face of COVID is the person standing next to you': 70-plus doctors urge the hesitant to get vaccine, Aug. 23, 2021 

Associated Press, FACT FOCUS: Florida Doctors Did Not Walk off the Job, Aug. 24, 2021

Email interview, Shelly Weiss Friedberg public relations director at Tenet Healthcare, and Ryan Lieber public relations manager at Tenet Healthcare, Aug. 25, 2021

Phone/Email interview with Dr. Jennifer Buczyner, neurologist and stroke director for Jupiter Medical Center, Aug. 25, 2021 

Email interview, MSNBC spokesperson, Aug. 25, 2021

Browse the Truth-O-Meter

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