I've thought a lot about this case. We have a lot of people talking about consequences, what manifests vs. what is deserved. I submit that when it comes to public reaction, what manifests is almost never what is deserved, and that the two are nearly impossible to reconcile within this very specific sphere.
I think of the public as an amorphous collective whose reactions can't be changed. It's a force of nature. Then think of these other examples where people make poor choices and face worse consequences:
-Does a person who takes an unnecessary drive during a snow storm deserve to die in a crash?
-Does a trusting tourist deserve to have his identity stolen?
-Does a family deserve to lose its primary income because the breadwinner is put in prison for years?
In each case, you can argue fault on the victims...the driver shouldn't be driving, the tourist should know better, the family shouldn't have relied on a person with a criminal past. But do they deserve the harshest and very realistic outcomes they receive? Most of us would say no...we would all be in favor of something less than the harshest. But we can't control life to that degree. We can't make sure every person driving during a blizzard only gets into a fender bender, just as a warning not to do it again. Sometimes your first offense is your worst offense.
This is important because this is what medicine is. It's a series of tragic events that not everyone deserves, and you have the front row seat.
I saw an 18 year old boy who was underwater for 20 minutes this summer. I was in the ICU. I saw his family, his mother holding it together just until the father got there, his father looking absolutely powerless, his little brother clutching that goddamn waifu pillow that I can no longer make fun of like I used to because it brings me right back to this. Of course he died. He coded 3 times. His crime? He didn't know what you were supposed to do if you got caught in a rip current. You ask yourself about what people deserve vs. what they get in the face of that. Ask yourself if he or his family deserved what they got for being in a situation that probably would have ended similarly for many of us at age 18. I know I did.
It's a question of fairness. Her career is ruined, probably. Does she deserve that, no, probably not. But there is no dial for public shame. Either it is full blast or not. We can throw conjecture back and forth all we want about how if the kind of personality we saw would have impacted her practice, but what we can't do is say for sure if she could have changed for the better or not. She no longer has the chance. I'm sure some patient somewhere will give her a go, but her career is forever impacted unless she does something drastic. But then it all becomes a question of if she deserves to have to do something drastic just to salvage her life. We'd probably say no to that, too.
In the end, we are only left with dissatisfaction. The answer choice we wanted isn't available. It doesn't exist. You must accept the unfairness that life has built into it. Just shake your head and move on.