“I spent nearly one hour with Reveal detailing Tesla’s decision earlier this
year to bring me and my medical team on site at Fremont, providing its
employees with state-of-the-art occupational and musculoskeletal health
care. I detailed our vision for exemplary patient care and I gave specific
examples of protocol improvements and subsequent successes in outcomes
in only four short months, including accurate diagnoses and reducing
needless delays for advanced testing and treatment. I patiently educated
Will Evans on how Tesla allowed me to give the same care to Tesla
employees that I do to my private patients including ones who are
professional athletes, with the ability to get necessary testing and treatment
in a timely manner without being hindered by an often cumbersome
California Worker’s Compensation System that sometimes negatively effects
injured workers.

I counseled Will on the difference between subjective complaints of pain,
which cannot be proven and are often magnified, and objective signs found
only on careful clinical examination by an experienced physician. I even
mailed Will a copy of a relevant chapter from the American Medical
Association Return to Work Guidelines and offered to make myself available
for additional questions. Research and evidence-based medicine indicate
that deconditioning injuries involving sore muscles should not be treated
with inactivity as this only exacerbates the problem, but should instead be
treated by proactive conditioning, ergonomic modifications and supportive
care. Not all patients in pain should be off work, at home and on opioids. In
fact, it is most often in these patients’ best interest to have supportive care
that enhances their activity, their function, and their well-being.
As a physician, my foremost obligation is to perform a careful history and
physical examination, order additional tests when clinically indicated, make
an accurate diagnosis, and deliver the absolute best care possible. If
patients are injured and continued work presents safety issues for the
patient, myself and my fellow physicians prescribe the appropriate work
restrictions. Any suggestion that myself or any of my medical team at AOC
allow external factors to influence our medical care in any way is false and
inaccurate.

I advised Will on why ambulances should be reserved for life or limb
threatening injuries and that every ambulance that is thoughtlessly called for

 a non-life-threatening injury is one less ambulance that is available to
actually save a life rather than be used as a convenience. Most
importantly, all members of my team are empowered to call 911 for any limb
or life-threatening condition.

Rather than deliver an informative and balanced piece of journalism, Reveal
has instead chosen to hitch its wagon to Ms. Anna Watson, a provider with
whom we severed ties after less than two weeks at our clinic and about
whom I cannot provide any additional comment as she is currently the
subject of an investigation by the California Medical Board. Instead of
highlighting the tremendous progress being made in both patient safety and
patient care at Tesla, this report uses poor sourcing to tell a story consistent
with a predetermined agenda.”