Yale medical school’s chief psychiatry resident told a TV host that people should avoid their Trump-voting relatives on Thanksgiving and Christmas. While on MSNBC with host Joy Reid, Amanda Calhoun said if you have relatives who voted for Trump, “it’s completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why.”
Calhoun suggested saying “I have a problem with the way that you voted because it went against my very livelihood, and I’m not going to be around you this holiday. I need to take some space for me.” She added that avoiding Trump-supporting relatives “may be essential for your mental health.”
Calhoun’s faculty web page at Yale says she “focuses on the mental health sequelae of anti-Black racism in children.” She is a Viola W. Bernard Social Justice and Health Equity Fellow.
In 2023, Calhoun called for requiring doctors to wear body cameras so patients can catch them acting racist. “If hospitals and medical institutions want to make good on those anti-racism statements made in 2020, prove it: Have health care professionals wear body cameras,” Calhoun said. “As a patient, I would feel far more comfortable if they did. And as a doctor, I will volunteer to wear one first.”
Two years ago, Calhoun said that “jokes…can be just as detrimental as physical violence.”
