“While these findings are unfortunate, we collected this data before the pandemic,” says oncologist Shikha Jain, a co-author of the study. “I’m pretty sure if we had done it now, it would be significantly worse — the number of people attacking doctors online about COVID-19 has been alarming.”
So what are physicians — especially women and those in less-represented ethnic and religious groups — to do? An easy answer might be to avoid social media. But that’s the wrong conclusion, say Jain and Pendergrast.