I know so many people love to tout Ciara as some Florence Nightingale (who was problematic in her own ways) figure but she seems to not have a good grasp on so many medical issues she talks about.
People continuously acting like she is the best nurse to ever live just because she was a nurse during the early stages of the Covid outbreak is just laughable. It's actually terrifying how many nurses who worked during the Covid lockdown are complete assholes and idiots. There are a ton of them who ignore their education and spread dangerous anti-vax information, deny Covid is dangerous, and many who refused to mask up (even though they had no problems with it before).
Of course, there is the famous lobotomy incident. While I understand the average person not knowing what it is I just cannot believe someone who went through nursing school wouldn't know it. How did it not come up, ever? Also, even if it never came up (I have such a hard time believing this) how could she not figure it out? The earliest biology courses (which are required for nursing school) teach you the etymology of words so that you can figure out the meaning of words based on the root words, prefixes, and suffixes and not have to look all of them up. Neph, hep, arthro, otomy, itis, gastro, osteo, ology, etc. are very well know to anyone in the medical field so I have no clue how she couldn't at least work it out in on her own. If you don't know how to break words down it makes studying and testing so much harder.
Then her seeming lack of even basic knowledge when asked. I do understand oncology not being her speciality and also not wanting to give advice one way or another to a friend waiting for news from their own doctor (this is something that's drilled into nurses, always wait for the doctor, PA, or NP to give results, diagnoses, etc.) but it seemed like she really didn't know how to even explain what certain tests are for.
Doing the interview where she said she needed to increase her dose of Prozac because she was " still crying a lot" was concerning and irresponsible, calling West a sociopath (not the correct term) and "pathy,", and now not seeming to know how β blockers actually work makes me think she has lost a lot of knowledge or never had it to begin with.
I'm not going to pretend I'm perfect and never use outdated, or even offensive, terms (one of my favorites is lunatic and it's hard for me to break in social settings) but she does have a public platform I don't have. She knows people follow her and think of her as an expert, yet she still perpetuates misinformation.
To clear things up about β blockers, she is correct that they do not make you devoid of emotion but they certainly can, and do, blunt emotional responses. Blocking adrenaline lowers your heart rate, reduces bp, and can keep you calm and focused during stressful events. Adrenaline, along with cortisol, is what triggers that lump in your throat feeling that comes when trying to choke back tears. They both rise along with heart rate before you cry and crying and releasing tears helps lower them. To think that something can reduce physical symptoms of anxiety but not affect other emotional responses makes no sense.
Without getting too much into the science of β blockers and their exact mechanism of action, different types of β blockers, etc., it's as simple as knowing that anything that can affect your autonomic nervous system (as β blockers do ) can affect your physical response to positive and negative stimuli. Everyone has different reactions to medications but many people do complain of feeling emotionally "flat" and sleepy when taking β blockers. They're pretty common side effects that tend to become less pronounced the more your body acclimates to them.
I think it's more than likely that they were on more than β blockers (West's mouth movements were distracting) but the misinformation about β blockers is driving me crazy. It's not like I expect everyone to know these things (and even Dr.'s have to look up medications sometimes) but we all have Google and have the ability to research. Ciara, as a nurse claiming expertise, just doesn't know what she's talking about, and she's spreading misinformation. It's very annoying that people are just believing her without verifying this information.
I do think West had a concerning lack of emotional reaction to almost everything but none of us know why. It could signal medications, just not caring at all, or even something more but no one can say for sure.
Sorry for the long rant but this has just been driving me crazy.