PRESIDENT’S PAGE
HISTORIC TIMES AND A
NEW CHAPTER
Members, past presidents,
board members
and guests of the Dallas
County Medical Society,
and to my family present, I
consider this an honor and privilege to serve
as the 139th president of this esteemed
organization.
We are meeting April 6, 2022, at the Frontiers
of Flight Museum, instead of late January
at the Park City Club, because of the
latest Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, a
novel coronavirus that has wreaked havoc
all over the world over the past two years.
We all hope that the devastation is over
while we continue to monitor outbreaks locally
and worldwide.
Because of the extraordinary circumstances
that we’ve faced these past two
years, I thought the ceremony deserved
some mention of the magnificent efforts
put forth by the Dallas County Medical
Society (DCMS) and Dallas County Health
and Human Services Department (DCHHS)
for our community.
While we should continue to appreciate
and respect the dangers of COVID-19 and
other future pandemics, let’s acknowledge
that fear ultimately does us harm. We are
all fortunate to live in a great county with
a robust pharma industry and scientific
innovation that gave us vaccines, medications
and resources to combat COVID, and
will continue to utilize them now and in the
future.
As of March 11, 2022, the DCHHS COVID
19 summary reported 572,845 cases of
COVID-19, 35,521 hospitalizations and 6,071
deaths. Dallas County has approximately
2.63 million residents. If all COVID-19 deaths
occurred in hospitals (which they did not),
this would be an estimated 1 death for every
6 hospitalized patients (17%). After two
years, Dallas County moved to a Yellow Risk
Zone on March 18, 2022.
I would like to honor several groups and
people, many of whom are now household
names given their TV news appearances
and quotes in our print media:
1. DCMS: The DCMS fulfilled its mission
2 | DALLAS MEDICAL JOURNAL • April 2022
of promoting public health and will
continue to fulfill this mission with respect
to the SARS CoV-19 pandemic,
by serving as a medical resource of
information to local Dallas County
physicians and policymakers. The
DCMS and the Texas Medical Association
(TMA) has navigated, and will
continue to navigate, the changing
guidelines of COVID-19. Thank you,
DCMS and TMA.
2. Public Health Committee: At the
onset of the pandemic, Judge Clay
Jenkins – our county commissioner
in charge of Public Emergencies –
sought the advice of our medical
community and appointed Dr. Trish
Perl, a reward recipient this evening
and Division Chief for Infectious Diseases
at UT Southwestern, to oversee
a committee called the Public
Health Committee, which assessed
COVID-19 risk level and made health
guidance recommendations for our
community: Trish Perl, MD (Chair),
Cristie Columbus, MD, Robert Haley,
MD, Mark Casanova, MD, Debbie
Branson, Steve Love (DFW Hospital
Council), Fred Cerise, MD (Parkland
Hospital) , Ikwo Oboho, MD, Philip
Huang, MD (Dallas County Health
& Human Services Dept.) and Ruby
Blum.
3. School Health Committee Physicians:
Preston Wiles, MD (Chair),
Wendy Chung, MD, Amanda Evans,
MD, Charles Ginsberg, MD, and Victoria
Shinn, MD.
4. Physicians & other healthcare workers:
It is appropriate to take some
time to honor the physicians and
other providers on the healthcare
team that fight the war on the front
lines. Emergency room doctors, infectious
disease specialists, pulmonologists,
internists, intensive care intensivists,
hospitalists, palliative care
and all other specialties that cared
for COVID-19 patients. On behalf of
the DCMS and our community, we
thank you, and we salute you.
There will be a time in the future when
we will collectively conduct a detailed post
hoc analysis on our COVID-19 pandemic
response, but right now is not the time.
However, I would like to make a few comments
as a physician, and as a citizen of our
community, regarding the management of
a public health emergency.
1. Lockdowns: It is my sincere hope
that we never live through another
time when we have mandated lockdowns
and business closures. Lockdowns
may have been necessary to
slow the spread of COVID, but they
created other problems, particularly
for those without adequate financial
resources. While lockdowns may be
effective at slowing down transmission,
they had a social cost for those
with unstable home environments, a
medical cost for those that delayed
diagnostic evaluations for cancer
and other diseases, and they took a
disproportionate toll on those who
needed employment – particularly
those who live paycheck to paycheck.
Lockdowns, albeit effective,
took a toll on society in many ways
that I suspect have yet to be measured.
2. Public Health Emergency Governance:
I had never once seriously
contemplated who or what governing
body should have the authority
to create or enforce public health
recommendations during a pandemic
caused by a virus, until two
years ago. After the experience
of the past two years, one thing is
certain: serious and well-intentioned
people will disagree about how to
best implement and manage a public
health emergency. Who should
have the authority to implement
public health measures? The executive
branch of the federal govern-
Samuel J. Chantilis, MD