The infamous Twitter account, Libs of TikTok, recently exposed a doctor at the Adolescent Specialty Clinic at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital for admitting to providing children with a “safe space” — by which she means, a space where parents are excluded from conversations and decisions.
Everyone loves it when the truth is finally exposed in the light, and this week the famous Twitter account “The Libs of TikTok” has exposed a clinic where a licensed doctor has admitted that in this practice, they try to go further than primary care to understand their young patients but give them the privacy to be themselves once they ask the parents to leave.
“We really try to create a safe space here . . . part of that really entails having the parents step out of the room for a few minutes.”
Dr. Jasmine Reese said in her interview, “we are a referral-based clinic where we’re not doing primary care, we’re really taking the time to focus on the adolescent’s needs.”
Dr. Reese expressed that they dive into deep personal questions that have nothing to do with the health side of the young teens but more personal questions about their feelings and emotions, trying to create a safe space by having these questions asked with their parents being asked to leave the room. Dr. Reese can be heard asking this young patient, “do you feel like you have a good solid group of friends that you like?”
Give me a break! A practicing primary care physician is supposed to focus on the health and physical well-being of a patient, not their mental state. That is why you have licensed therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists that work with the mind and mental well-being of adolescents.
I am shocked that more parents don’t fight back when asked to leave the room with their child in it. If I were a parent, I would want to be present for any response my child gives a doctor so that I am aware of the situation and know how to help them. Having parents absent from the room creates an atmosphere that encourages kids to hide things from their parents. Instead, parents should create healthy relationships with their children so they know they can come to their parents for anything.
There are many doctors across America trying to create a culture that removes parents from having a say in the health decisions of their children. This is not acceptable. It’s time to tell doctors to stick with medicine and let the parents be parents.
