Medicine Meets Social Media

On this episode of Going Under: Anesthesia Answered with Dr. Brian Schmutzler and Vahid Sadrzadeh, a med student’s viral posts spark a bigger question that every clinician with a camera eventually faces: when does “content” become unprofessional behavior? We dig into the messy middle where medical education, comedy, trends, and credibility all collide and where one bad clip can follow you longer than you think.

We talk candidly about what feels non-negotiable for healthcare professionals on TikTok, Instagram, and beyond: protecting patient privacy and PHI, staying accurate, and avoiding satire that reads as demeaning once it leaves your circle. From there, we zoom out to the post-COVID reality that pushed more physicians and nurses online in the first place, especially as non-clinicians began offering confident medical takes to massive audiences. 

You’ll also hear the behind-the-scenes realities of building a medical influencer brand the right way: why it takes more time than people expect, how a good team helps you follow trends without crossing lines, and why your specialty and career stage should change what you post. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

This is going under Anesthesia Answered with Dr. Brian Schmutzer. I'm Vahid Sadarazade, and we are brought to you as always by your good friends at Butterfly Network.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

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Why Doctors Took Over Social

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Check it out at ButterflyNetwork.com. Thank you to them. As always, we took a mental health week. Everybody does that. We did, we did. It's been very busy. Um this is uh an interesting topic that we're covering today because obviously you've grown your brand on social media over the last couple of years. Uh and five years organically. Organically every one of those are real followers. No, no, no followers purchased. I'm looking at you. As somebody who is uh involved more or less involved in your social media, I can guarantee you those are real followers uh that we did not pay for. Yeah. So thank you for subscribing to all the channels and to watching and to listening. But but the biggest thing here in the takeaway, we'll talk about it as we go along because some medical student did some nefarious things on social media, maybe. Quote unquote. Yeah. Um, and we're gonna talk about that, but but overarching is doctors, physicians have overtaken social media. We saw that post-COVID. There was a need for it, there was a want for it.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Right. And and I think that I've heard this time and time again, even from some medical influencers that I don't particularly like, is um that medical medical professionals became influencers because influencers tried to become medical professionals. I gotta wrap my brain around that. But yes. So the influencers who had no medical background tried to become tried to become medical professionals on TikTok on social media.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

So that's why it spurred on physicians, doctors, CRNAs, nurses, whoever, to do more TikToks. Yes. At what point, and you have gotten asked this question before, at what point, maybe not nicely, but at what point does it cross the line of medical information, entertainment, right? And professionalism. And I think that's what we're gonna dive into today.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

So the the biggest thing for me is keeping like PHI out of it. Unless the patient specifically signs a consent that says that you uh per uh personal health information, patient health information, yeah. So unless the patient signs a consent that says, hey, you can use X, Y, or Z on social media platforms, that's probably number one, right? That's the that's the low-hanging fruit. Don't break HIPAA, you know. We learn all this. Um, I think the next thing is being accurate. So if you're completely inaccurate lying about things, that's probably a big issue. And then I think the next thing, and so some of us have a little bit more leeway in this than others because you know, I own my own business and I'm not in medical school or residency, like I don't have all those constraints, so I got a little bit more leeway to be a little bit more edgy, not that I'm super edgy, but edgy. Um, but you got to think about you know who your employer is and what they're gonna think about. Because the brand is you, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

The brand isn't somebody else's brand, right? Right. Um that that's a fine line to cross, and it is and and I'll I'll share from a perspective of social media agent. Basically, there is a fine line when doing anything. Let's say you're a dancer, let's say you're whatever, right? Right, you're still representing the company or other people, but you're not. No, you're not. However, when you put it out there publicly, and I've seen this with my industry and other industries, you've had a little more leeway in that regard. Yeah. However, when it comes to the content, yes, it's interesting what flies, what gains traction, and what doesn't. Yeah. Because we've seen over the years, we can get on here, you can get on here and and and you know, we follow news, we follow trends, stuff like that. But it's the things that you least expect that will hit the trend. Yep. You'll get 10 million views for walking down a hallway and not saying a jacket on, yeah. Not saying a word. Right, right, right. But if you go on there and say, hey, like I'm gonna respond to this uh cancer treatment that we've been seeing that's been working, you'll get maybe a couple thousand views, right? Real views, by the way. Yes. But it's interesting because that's where it toes the line. It toes the line between knowledge and information and then entertainment. Yep. That's where it toes the line. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

I I the problem is that you have to either get on those trends naturally, or you have to be a little bit salacious to get on those trends, or you have to have something like I don't know, there's one of those uh medical influencers out there who's like always hitting the phone, which drives me nuts, but that's her thing, right? So that got her popular. Um, you know, there the everybody kind of has their shtick, right? You know, and so sometimes that's being a little bit salacious. Where does that cross the line? It's hard to tell. So again, I I think there are like some cut and dried things like patient information and hundred percent and uh absolute untruths, but after that, it's like it's kind of a balance.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Like we're we're well, you saw those people in the OR that got in trouble, the the physician a long time ago that got in trouble for the O We don't do things like that. No, absolutely not. And if we do things in a setting like that, it's off hours, right? No patients are involved, right? Nothing was compromised. Right.

Viral Med Student Controversy

Higher Stakes When You’re Training

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Let's talk about this in particular. Yeah, so this one's a little bit interesting. So this is the viral medical student controversy. So I'm not gonna name names, but he was a medical student at supposedly uh Mayo College, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. Minnesota or uh what does that say? There's like different mayo. Yeah, so there's a mayo in Jacksonville, there's a mayo in Arizona. There's yeah, anyway, so he put up a bunch of videos. The way I take them is satirical. I mean, he he went a little too far, I guess, in my opinion, but they seem satirical. So anyway, they're criticized as misogynistic, mocking patients, including women's health topics, unprofessional clinical behavior. Um, again, just kind of like crossing that line. Now, again, if I'd have done I wouldn't, because that's not who I am, but if I'd have done this, I mean I might have gotten a little bit of pushback, but probably not fired. But he's a medicine. So he got fired. Well, that's what it says. There's no official confirmation from Mayo Clank he was fired, but he was reportedly you know, removed from he deleted his social media account. Yeah. So uh, you know, you've got to be much more careful when you're in training. And we made this point before when we were talking about the resident who is posing herself as an expert, right? Like when you're in training, you got to be one, careful that you're not overinflating what you know, but also careful that you're not out there doing something that your program's gonna be unhappy about. Because here's the problem with him if he's a fourth-year medical student and he gets kicked out of medical school, he's gonna have a hard time getting into another medical school. That's right. And then what's he gonna do with his life? For me, let's say, let's say, for instance, I did something like this and I was fired from a job, I can go find another job. I'm still a I'm still a board certified anesthesiologist, right? I'm gonna have to explain why I got fired, but I mean, there's still opportunity there when you're a medical student and potentially a resident as well. Although, you know, you're a physician when you're a resident, so maybe it's less uh troublesome. But yeah, as a medical student, if he's kicked out, he's not getting into another medical school now.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

So have I know you've gotten approached probably from dozens of medical students because those are kind of who tune into these podcastslash information reels and sessions and stuff like that, but they've approached you asking, hey, like what are have they approached you asking what are the steps? How do I become an influencer? How do I start that on social media? And we we've we've talked to a few who have built it the right way, have built it, you know, on a straight and arrow. Yep. But what was your advice to those people?

Building A Brand The Right Way

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Unless you have an inordinate amount of time, which most physicians don't, even medical students or residents don't, you hire a good team, right? So my everything I do is my own, but I've got a good team around me who follows the trends, make sure that we're recording things, make sure that we're posting appropriately, answers questions to people, lets me know if somebody, you know, sends in a really good message that I need to respond to directly. So you've got to hire a good team if you really want to build it well. And then get a shtick, right? So my shtick is the self-deprecating anesthesiologist, and we do that with Adam, Dr. Adam CN, and it so it kind of all fits together, but kind of staying in character. Um, those would be the two things that I would say. Be prepared to dedicate a lot of time to it. It takes a lot more time than you think to really build a full-on social media presence.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

And sometimes that means as a social media team saying no, right? True. Because I think teams, yeah, influencers want to step over that line, and it's the job of the team that you hired to say, you know what? Yeah, yeah, that's gonna garner you a lot of likes, that's gonna garner you a lot of attention. Yeah, is that necessarily the right thing to do? Is it on brand? And that's where I would challenge some media teams to not push that boundary, right? Know your clients, know the area where you are, and whether or not that's that's the right move. Yeah.

Professionalism Without Clear Rules

SPEAKER_00 10:40

And we've said no to certain um companies who have approached us to be um, you know, hundred percent on with their collaborators. Collaborators are on with their team, um, just because they didn't fall in line with our values and didn't fall in line with our brand. So, although I am excited about what the next one that's coming. Do I know this one? I don't know. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Okay. It'll be a good one. Uh so this whole this whole thing though talks uh the this really brings up some topics of the collision of social media and medicine. You know, we're gonna be on social media, it's gonna happen. Again, the reason that we got on social media is because social media people tried to try to become medical experts. So that's not gonna stop. There's a whole there there's a there's a big appetite for it, it's gonna continue. Um I guess the question that you have to answer, and I think this is different for everyone, uh, what's the definition of professionalism, right? And so all the all the societies have stayed away from this, all the medical societies. They don't have a stance on whether you can be on social media, what your social media can look like, what's professional and what's not. So it's a it's a person by person and organization by organization thing. Also the risk of performative medicine versus real medicine. So we we do some of this when we're kind of showing things or if we're like pretending something happened with a patient, we do some performative medicine. Um but we don't ever do it in a um in a uh patient demeaning way, and that's what I think, even though it was satirical, that's what I think the problem is is with some of the stuff that this particular fellow did. And then the trust contract between doc doctors and patients. So that goes back to not putting patient information online unless they sign off on it.

Practical Posting Rules And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Have you ever had a conversation or I mean, obviously, a lot of people out there who have conversations with their schools or teams or workplaces about social media, and you know, again, it could be an individual thing, yeah, but I almost relate it to where workplaces are with AI. Yeah, a lot of workplaces don't have answers to AI yet because it's still developing. We've known about social media for a long time, right? But I feel like the shift happened six years ago. Yep, everybody's at home, everybody's trying to make content, and all of a sudden you have this influx of people doing their own thing, but you also had an influx of money, which drives a lot of the correct social media answers too.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

So yeah. Um, so the way I've heard it described to me, and I I do work with a big national anesthesia company, um, is don't post something that you wouldn't put in the group chat to everybody at work. I agree with that, and I'm pretty comfortable that I don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

So, right. And I am surprised that some professionals, and this is outside the scope of medicine too, yeah, what they post. Yeah, you know, like I again, I'm not gonna name names out there uh specifically related to the medical inform, you know, the medical reels that I see. But there's some doctors out there, I'm like, what why what are you posting? Yeah, why? Yeah, why is this relative to what you do? Right. And I don't think it really like I don't think it boosts my idea of you as a professional.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

The brand, yeah. You know, I think staying away a little bit from things that you don't have any expertise in goes back to just like the resident saying she's an expert. Staying away from things you don't really have any expertise in, um, you know, commenting about, I don't know, make it up. Um, you know, you're the you're angry about the ant problem in Japan. Like, why are you commenting about that? It has nothing to do with you, especially if you put yourself up as a medical, medical professional influencer. So, you know, kind of staying on topic, I think makes a lot of sense. But, you know, if you want to branch out, I I've got no problem with it. I just don't know that it's helpful to your brand and helpful to to medical TikTok or whatever, you know, medical.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

We've had plenty of clients that have gone the other way too. So very safe. Like, uh, I don't know if that's our brand. I don't know if that's who we want to, you know. But as the audience gets younger and younger and younger, you know, now the question is, okay, is social media the route to go? Is it better to be a silent professional? Is it better to go that route? Uh I think there's always gonna be an appetite now, as long as it's a 24-hour news cycle, there's always gonna be an appetite for social media.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

I don't I don't think you can survive. If you are trying to gain clients, you cannot survive without social media because yes, you may have a conversation with a client and they look at your website, but they're also looking at you on social media. 100%. And the and advertising-wise, social media you gain a lot of attention for less money, right? I mean, I'm learning very quickly how expensive TV commercials are versus versus radio versus media, right? So that I think that's that's key. But I think you can be tasteful, yet funny and even somewhat salacious and still be tasteful.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Well, if I look at you on social media and I say, hey, like, wow, that that's a funny doc. He he has a sense of humor, yeah, right? I always say trust, sense of humor, you know, professionalism, whatever. But I I want my doc to have a sense of humor. I want my doc to be open and not, you know, because I think the idea and why this is so big in this industry, the idea of a physician is the trusted button. Right, yeah, you know, we don't not really extroverted, but you know, into their own medicine, into studying, into something like that. And it's not really the extrovert. So I think people are shocked when they see, right, people who are physicians have a sense of humor or be outgoing, yeah, or act.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

I mean, a lot, you know, let's be honest. A lot of what 100% is acting, right? It's it's figuring out what you mean. Yeah. I mean, am I really dancing around putting coats on in the hallway? No, right, it's acting, right? It's acting to fulfill a uh uh you know an idea, a theme that we're trying to put out. So you you have to have a little bit of acting ability, and I'll be honest, go look at my first four or five reels versus now. You get better at it with practice too. But yeah, I agree. I mean, I've had several people come to me at hospitals I've been at, and I mean people know me over all over the state, all over the country who talk about like, oh, you you know, you know Dr. Brian. He, you know, he's on TikTok, he's on Instagram. Um, and I always warn people when I meet them, like, I'm way funnier online than I am in real real life. Like, I do have a serious uh you're not a bummer in real life. No, I'm not a bummer, but I'm not I'm also not doing dances with surgeons and running around the hall.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

When it comes time for business, you do business. And that's and that's that's the professional line that we're talking about, is you know, and I think that employers with this specific gentleman that was on social media, right, is you kind of lose a little bit of that credibility. Yep. And that's what employees are concerned about is not only their credibility as an institution, but your credibility. People are not gonna come see you. Right. People are not gonna come to the hospital because you're here, right? Which is a sad place to be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

And and I I think that maybe I think that maybe falls into people who actually have their own practice. So again, I'm a little bit buffered from that because I'm an anesthesiologist, and patients aren't like, oh, I'm going to that hospital because of that anesthesiologist. No, they're going to that hospital because of that surgeon. So, you know, when people show up, they're not like, I came to this hospital because I want you to take care of me. They're saying, I came to this hospital because Dr. Cien's my surgeon, and oh, you're the anesthesiologist. I've seen you on TikTok before. So, you know, it really depends what area of medicine you go into. You know, if you're a primary care physician, if you're a pediat uh pediatrician, if you're a surgeon, people are coming to see you as an anesthesiologist.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

And I think that should dictate to a certain extent what content you put out there, right? Absolutely. You and Dr. CN put out different content. Right. You may collaborate on some things because you're funny together, right? But at the same time, you put out different content. And I think that's important. I can't go out and and be somebody else that I'm not, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Well, and he's also trying to gain patience, right? So part of his social media is to show himself as a competent, excellent doctor, which I think he is, so that more patients see it, so more patients come see him. I ha I don't have that incentive. Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

So it's an interesting I I guess it's it's there's more strategy to it than people think.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

You know, I I think people think, oh, I'm gonna pick up my phone and just make content today. First of all, it's not that simple. It's not and it's not that easy, right? In terms of how to strategize what you want to become. Because trust me, I've seen way too many people and content creators think they're gonna mold into this thing that they've seen, and at the end of the day, they go viral for something they didn't want to go viral for. Right. And and that's a killer.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

You also honestly have to do a lot of research, which I don't do, you guys do the research, right? So you you have to do the research to know what the trends are and it and a little bit of prediction of what the trends are gonna be, because if you hit a trend too early, it doesn't hit. And if you hit a trend too late, you don't get any you don't get any viewers for it. So that it's it's just like any other industry. It's a it's a career, it's a career, right? So yeah, I mean, have I gotten pretty good at doing what I need to do? Yes, but do I have the knowledge to do it?

SPEAKER_01 20:33

No, I you know I have to here's a big question for you. Here's the there's the$15 billion question. Wow. Would you do it again? Of course, yeah, yeah. I think it's it's it's very important, and and you wanted to get into the social media realm for a different like sort of a different reason ultimately, yes, but while doing that, we kind of fit into this other lane, and it's a combination of what patients want to see, right, what you want to put out there, and how you can kind of collaborate on some of those things. And and I think it's it's a really interesting path, yeah, but it's also a secondary path, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

It's like it's an offshoot of who you are. Well, and I can share some important knowledge kind of in funny ways, and then that's what we use the podcast for is to really give deeper knowledge about anesthesia and medicine. Um, yeah, I I mean I originally started out wanting to do regional anesthesia and teach, you know, primarily providers, anesthesia providers, how to do regional anesthesia remotely because after COVID it was so hard to travel. Um, but that wasn't really hitting and wasn't super important to people. And so being the goofy, self deprecating anesthesiologist seemed to work, and so that's where we are. Now I still get to, like I said, impart some knowledge here and there, and that's what the podcast does as well. But this is the lane I fell into, and here we are.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah, and it's and it's good. I mean, we still we still do news uh questions, um, you know. So all of that kind of fits into the brand that you've created. Right. And I think it should be different for every person. Now listen, if this dude got fired for doing something like that, you're going to need to re-look at what you're doing. Yeah. And and again, I think the important thing is, and you said it, if you're not going to say it in the group chat, if you're kind of so-so about it, don't put it out there. Yeah. Well, don't put it out there.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

And and you've got to know who your not necessarily employer is, but you've got to know what setting you're in when you're doing social media stuff like that. So again, I don't know what area of medicine he's going to go into, but for me, patients don't come to see me. So even if I'm a little bit, you know, close to the edge, they're not going to not come to a hospital because of me. Uh, or whatever because of me. I own my own company, so there's not a lot of people above me to tell me I can or can't do something. Um, and then, you know, I also I also don't ever say or do anything that I wouldn't put in the group chat.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

So I think I always think of my my mom. Yeah. Sadie. If Sadie could say, if Sadie's watching it and she does, I'm not going to put it out there. Right. You know, nobody needs to know that or see that, you know. But we always know kind of what lane we should be in, and I think that's an important thing. Um, I think that's it.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Yeah, I think that's really it. That's it for today. I and really what I wanted to do here was just to put out there that this happened. I think there's still a lot that's not known. So I'm I'm not condemning the guy. I'm also not condoning what he did, but I'm not condemning the guy yet without all the all the information. Um, but just yeah, just as a kind of cautionary warning, especially to medical students and residents who are still not done and don't have options, um, just be a little bit careful and try to be funny. That's the key. Try to be funny. Try to be like Dr. Brian Schmutzer. No, not necessarily like me. Everybody's gotta get their own humor, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:51

That's right. Well, this has been going under anesthesia answered with Dr. Brian Schmutzer. I'm Vahid Sadrzadi. We're brought to you by the Butterfly Network. See you next time.