The public reaction was immediate and fierce. Patient advocacy groups demanded action. Mercy General’s patient relations office was flooded with calls and emails from former patients who had their own stories about Vance. Some had never filed complaints because they assumed no one would believe them. Others had complained and been brushed aside with apologies crafted by risk management departments whose job was to preserve institutional stability rather than moral truth. Social media picked up the story. Radio hosts discussed it. Health policy outlets amplified it. National organizations concerned with implicit bias in medicine cited it as a glaring, painfully familiar example of how stereotype becomes harm when no one checks power in real time.