Amidst Tech Turmoil, Physicians and Medical Students Use Social Media as a Platform for Medical Education and Combating Misinformation

In the summer of 2021, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a report calling the distribution of medical misinformation through social media an “urgent threat to public health.” And this week, amidst a turbulent period for tech companies marked by extensive layoffs, a New York Times article identified a trend of social media companies divesting in the fight against misinformation. The article said, “Last month, the company [YouTube], owned by Google, quietly reduced its small team of policy experts in charge of handling misinformation, according to three people with knowledge of the decision. The cuts, part of the reduction of 12,000 employees by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, left only one person in charge of misinformation policy worldwide, one of the people said. And YouTube is not alone. The cuts reflect a trend across the industry that threatens to undo many of the safeguards that social media platforms put in place in recent years to ban or tamp down on disinformation ….”

Despite declining resources at social media companies, the medical community appears willing to step up to address the gap. In the past we’ve highlighted the efforts of medical schools to prepare students to take on medical misinformation, which ranges from large investments in institutions for research and study, to incorporating communications and social media techniques into the medical school classroom. There are also a number of physicians and medical students who are building vibrant social media communities for the purpose of proactively circulating accurate and understandable medical information. Below, we profile just a few of the physicians who are engaging audiences via social media with reliable and focused medical information. 

• Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick, founder of Grapevine Media, creates content specifically geared towards a population that the mainstream health system tends to ignore. Her company, which creates “Ask a Doctor” videos and posts them on social media, seeks to provide medical information for people of color and/or those of low socioeconomic status. The videos feature doctors of color who answer medical questions in clear terms and with actionable advice for this audience, keeping in mind the challenges borne by those with low incomes. In an interview with NPR, Dr. Fitzpatrick noted that educating people won’t resolve all their barriers to good health, but she reiterated her belief that information can improve wellbeing. "To me, it's so clear all roads lead to trusted health information and understanding health and health care," she said. "But the challenge is how to make it obvious to everybody else." Dr. Fitzpatrick is currently pitching the video content to insurance companies as a means to improve the health of these hard-to-reach populations, while also reducing insurers’ costs.

• Joel Bervell, a 4th-year medical student at Washington State University School of Medicine, creates TikTok videos that highlight areas of racial bias in medicine. He told Medscape in an interview that he views himself as a “medical myth buster.” He educates his 600,000 plus followers on biases in medicine that can negatively impact care for people of color. Medscape provided an example of this goal by describing one of his TikTok videos, “... he explains that the equation used to measure kidney function (glomerular filtration rate [GFR]) has a built-in "race adjustment" that increases the GFR for all Black patients. ‘That overestimation could mean that 3.3 million Black Americans would have had a higher stage of kidney disease and missed out on care and treatment,’ said Bervell.” 

• StatNews described a joint effort by a group of physicians to support a twitter feed, “Health News Around the World,” with vetted, up-to-date health news and stories. 

• Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, MD, runs an Instagram account to provide his 462,000 followers with information on nutrition and promoting a healthy gut via his account “TheGutHealthMD”. His feed answers questions, reviews products, links to podcasts, corrects misinformation, and provides followers with indicators of healthy or unhealthy bodily functioning.

Related: Medical Schools Train Students to Combat Medical Misinformation

Want to Achieve Your Goals? First, Define Your Personal Brand.

In a Forbes article, writer Greg Llopis said that people often confuse the notion of a personal brand with having a curated social media page. In truth, however, social media is just one portion of a much larger idea. Your personal brand is how you express the compilation of experiences you’ve had, what you have to offer, and your intentions going forward. While social media accounts should align with your brand, they do not define it.

Llopis says, “Every time you are in a meeting, at a conference, networking reception or other event, you should be mindful of what others are experiencing about you and what you want others to experience about you.” This awareness of others’ experience allows you the freedom to put forward your most authentic self, rather than letting nerves or other outside influences change how you respond in a situation.

Spending time defining your personal brand will pay dividends as you move forward in your career, whether that means creating an exceptional grad school application, building a compelling resume, prepping for an interview or career-fair, or working towards the next promotion. It will not only allow you to be a proactive planner and decision maker, it will also act as a filter when you evaluate various career options.

To begin defining your personal brand, consider the following:  

1.       Your past experiences

Have you ever been so engaged in a pursuit that time seemingly disappeared? What have you found most difficult?  Which experiences stand out as those which prompted an evolution in your perspective? What are you most proud of? When have you felt most fulfilled?

2.       How you engage with others and the world

What strengths have you developed over time? What are your greatest weaknesses? How have you dealt with adversity? What feedback do you consistently receive when working with others? How do think others experience you? What five adjectives would you use to describe yourself? Do you think others would use the same five adjectives? If not, which would they use?

3.       Your future goals.

What type of work do you enjoy? What type of work do you aspire to do? What would you like your professional relationships to look like? What sort of environment do you think you would thrive in? What is your ideal work-life balance? What aspects of a position are most important to you and where are you willing to compromise? What are your short- and long-term goals?

Once you’ve refined your brand, you can start to put it into action to determine which opportunities will (and will not) be a good fit for you. Just remember to express a consistent message everywhere, including on social media. Recruiters or admissions officers should never be surprised by what they see online, rather the content should provide further depth on the person they know.

Use Social Media to Enhance Your Graduate School Application

Last week, Kaplan Test Prep released data from their survey of over 150 business schools across the U.S. on the role of social media in the admissions process. Of the admissions officers surveyed:

• 35 percent say they have visited applicants’ social media profiles to learn more about them, up 13 percentage points from 2011
• 33 percent of those admissions officers who’ve visited applicants’ social media profiles say that they do so “often”
• Social media has helped and harmed applicants’ admission prospects in almost equal proportions (48 percent and 50 percent respectively)

See the full press release, including a video summary of the findings here: http://press.kaptest.com/press-releases/kaplan-test-prep-survey-growing-number-business-schools-turn-social-media-help-make-admissions-decisions 

Admissions officers who are reviewing students’ social media pages are looking to get to know the student and their background more fully. Prospective students can take advantage of this by ensuring that their social media profiles are up to date and supportive of the personal brand they’ve put forth in their applications. As such, we recommend that anyone applying to a graduate program, or an internship or residency, take at the least a cursory social media scan. Below, we have provided guidelines for doing so.

The Basics: If nothing else, confirm the following.

• Ensure that your social media privacy settings reflect your preferences, but keep in mind that even private information can leak or be distributed more widely.
• Review your pictures. Are there any that present you in a manner that would be embarrassing for an admissions officer to see? Be sure to go back and review even your oldest pictures. Remove those that you deem inappropriate, borderline, or simply not reflective of you.
• Ensure that your LinkedIn resume is up to date, grammatically correct, and in line with what you’ve submitted to the admissions committees. Similarly, confirm that your posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat are grammatically correct.
• Confirm that none of your content could even potentially be considered racist, sexist, or containing prejudicial language. You should consistently represent yourself as someone who will add to a diverse intellectual environment. Make it clear to your friends that you should not be tagged or otherwise included in groups that don’t share this spirit.
• Review your profiles often. Ensure that others are aware that you don’t want to be tagged in inappropriate pictures, videos, or comments.

The Upgrade: Use social media to enhance your application.

• Consider if your pictures are showcasing your hobbies and interests beyond, but including, time spent with friends. If not, add pictures that show a broader array of “you”. This might include shots from travel, volunteer work, cultural activities, time with pets, or engaging in other hobbies that show off aspects of your personality that will bring your essays and interviews to life.
• Ask co-workers from various points in your career to post recommendations on your LinkedIn account.
• Ensure that your goals are consistent between your application and social media posts. Don’t post different career goals than those that appear in your application, or actively discuss pursuing full-time careers that don’t require the graduate program to which you are applying.
• Keep your accounts up to date. Post about your current activities and events including conferences, speeches, or panels and include your reactions to the events. Share news or research articles on areas that you’re interested in. Take this opportunity to show off your writing and critical thinking skills or link to a blog containing your writing.
• Don’t hide those things which make you different. Admissions officers want a diverse graduate population, and social media is the perfect way to show off qualities and interests that set you apart from the crowd, as well as demonstrate how you currently contribute to the diversity of your community.

While, social media should continue to be a personalized and fun outlet for you, don’t forget to consider that it may also inform admissions committees or future employers about who you are, and ultimately impact their final decision.