Paul asked Dr. Sarah Szanton during the hearing on Health Care Workforce Shortages if she was "pro-choice in regards to patients making individualized medical choices?" to which Szanton responded "Broadly, thank you, yes."

The Senator then asked "Are you aware that your university doesn't allow choice with regard to vaccination, that you require all of your students to have three vaccines in order to be students?"

Szanton responded in the affirmative, and Paul noted "So it's sort of choice, but not so much when regarding vaccination,"

Paul then asked if Szanton is "aware of the increased risk of myocarditis with the COVID vaccine, particularly with successive COVID vaccinations in males between the ages of 16 and 24?"

Szanton then attempted to squirm away from the line of questioning, claiming it wasn't relevant to the subject of the hearing.

Paul shot back, "Here's the problem, if you exclude everybody from being a nurse who believes in basic immunology, you're gonna exclude a lot of smart people, people who believe that you can get immunity from both vaccination as well as infection."

He continued, "and if you say, 'Well, we're just not gonna take the people who believe in that old-fashioned infection thing providing immunity, we're only gonna take the people who do as they're told' — I mean, do you think individuals should be treated the same when they come to the emergency room?"