- Well friends, it's happened.
The future has arrived.
For too long have we been imprisoned by flesh and blood,
for too long has medicine impotently attempted to cure
the ills of our imperfect bodies.
Join me, Strange Doctor in the Metaverse of Maaadness.
And imagine consultations of the future.
- An NFT project focused on evolving virtual health care?
- [All] We are the MetaDocs.
- An NFT project with real utility.
- Working to close the gap between the real world
and virtual health care.
- While prioritizing charitable giving.
- Bringing good to the Metaverse.
- Founded by docs who love NFTS and Web3.
- Good people doing good things.
- Welcome to MetaDocs.
(definitely-not-a-scam music)
- Good people doing good things.
Well, I don't know about you but I'm convinced.
And I want to invest.
Welcome to the ten million rupee studio.
If you're not sure what we're talking about today,
I'm not really sure either.
But I've already filled out half at least half the boxes
on my Web3 Medtech Jargon Bingo card,
so let's watch another clip.
- What's a Metadoc?
MetaDoc? What's that?
- Hold on. A Meta what?
[Derobes With Doctorly Seductiveness]
But it helps with healthcare?
Now how does that work?
- MetaDocs is an NFT project
focused on healthcare and charity.
- Imagine living in Florida and getting second opinion
virtually from a Boston doctor
about your upcoming shoulder surgery
while they examine you from the Metaverse.
- MetaDocs is an NFT project
working to revolutionize healthcare and charitable giving.
- Best of all, Metadocs NFTS gives one on one access
to well-known doctors across social media and the country.
- And when we mint,
we will donate one million to charity after sell out.
- And let me tell you something.
[No Cap]
It doesn't stop there,
we will continue to donate 20% of our royalties
to charity as well.
And with all that newfound funding,
we will begin the process of revolutionizing
the healthcare experience virtually.
- Imagine a doctor in Denver giving charitable healthcare
to a community virtually in Malawi
using haptic gloves and biometric data.
- We dream for that day.
We work for that day.
Welcome to MetaDocs.
- Yes, I have frequently wondered about the citizens'
of Malawi's main problem being a lack of access
to remote plastic surgery consultations,
rather than say, lack of access to sanitation.
But okay, this is kind of telemedicine.
Well, audio and video consultations are already commonplace,
especially since the pandemic
kind of rushed the technology through.
So I'm not quite sure how the Metaverse
is going to make it better-verse.
- [Dr Meta-Gupta] I see.
Show me on your avatar where it hurts.
Now hold your microphone up to your chest. Uh huh.
Okay now while I put my haptic examination gloves on,
please bend forward and carefully align yourself
with the prostate-O-matic 3000 Home Probe.
- I'll be honest.
I am a bit bewildered to see some people I know
on this list.
The first thing I should say here
is that I have no idea what these doctors,
many of whom I'm sure you recognise,
were told about the project.
I have spoken to two of them. Two that I know.
And they haven't said much,
but I have been told that NFTs and a share of the coins
were offered depending on how much involvement
they had in the project.
And please be aware that at least one person, probably more
has already dissociated themselves from the project
even before I shared it on Twitter
because they felt it was a bit shady
so please don't jump to any conclusions
about anyone you see.
And of course I am not alleging any unscrupulous
or illegal activity at all,
but it does seem a bit odd right?
The second thing to say
is that I'm now feeling sorely inadequate
as I don't have my name embroidered into my scrubs,
nor do I have a fancy set.
I mean, this guy even has a neon sign saying Medlife.
Wouldn't it be nice to buy something like that for the wall?
Kind of like an analogue NFT.
Now, I've not done loads of research into NFTs
like Dan Olson or Coffeezilla.
I do not profess any great knowledge of NFTs at all
but can someone explain why the artwork
is invariably so laughable?
It feels like we're back in the '90s.
Let's take a look at MetaDocs website
for any other information.
Exclusive Access to World Renowned Doctors.
Holding a MetaDocs NFT gives you access
to an All Star Network of World Famous Doctors.
Immediately access high demand doctors via one on one
or group AMA sessions
along with direct messaging communication.
Plastic Surgeons, Dermatologists, Emergency Medicine
and many more.
Check out our Team of Doctors with a collective total
of 70 Million Social Media Followers!
Yes, well, number social media followers
was shown to have a linear correlation
with quality of doctor
in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1985.
What possible sense does it make
to quote the total social media following
of all the doctors.
How does that help me with my painful shoulder?
Yes I would like to complain actually
because I specifically requested
the 6 million TikTok follower good looking doctor
who does the dances
and instead I got some nerdy cardiologist
who hasn't even made it to half a million YouTube losers.
I'm sorry sir but am afraid your insurance package
only offers access to YouTube and Twitter doctors.
The Instagram hotties and TikTok dancing doctors
I'm afraid are in our premier package only available
to holders of our deluxe Heart NFT.
I would feel very concerned about giving medical advice
remotely without a robust medicolegal system in place.
For example, when I do remote clinics for my hospital,
both me and the patient are protected
by an established indemnity structure
and I have to operate within guidelines.
And I imagine in the US state licensing laws
also make this complex if the patient
is somewhere elsewhere.
Giving people health advice especially those
who have signed up through,
let's be honest a kind of parasocial enticement
to have access to the doctors
that they follow on social media
would ring alarm bells for me.
I'm sure the people involved were moved by charity angle.
So let's take a look at that.
- How is MetaDocs charitable?
- So first, the MetaDocs NFT
is gonna donate one million dollars from the minting process
to a charity.
And in addition, 20% of the royalties obtained
will also go toward charity and that's never been done.
- It's all a bit vague.
So if go to the website now,
you can't actually find any specific information.
But when I first looked into this a few days ago,
I saw that the first million will go to TACA,
an "autism charity based in Orange county California".
And, sad though it may sound on the surface,
if you're going to be involved in a scheme
to raise money for charity these days,
you do need to check what charity.
A quick search for TACA
shows that it stands for The Autism Community in Action
formerly Talk About Curing Autism.
and it is claimed here on Wikipedia
and on Science-Based Medicine to be a group that "promotes
the idea that vaccines cause autism",
as well as advocates dubious 'biomedical' treatments
to 'cure' them.
The founder used to attribute autism to a wide range
of causes.
She advocated for kind of quack therapies
like hyperbaric oxygen chamber and vitamin shots.
And in 2010, when the Lancet
finally retracted Andrew Wakefield's paper
linking vaccines and autism,
then a spokesperson for TACA insisted
that they still trusted Wakefield's research.
As I believe they'd say on TikTok:
Yikes!
The other charitable intention that was hinted at,
in these videos,
helping communities in countries like Malawi
is a wonderful goal,
but just as we've come to see 'voluntourism'
as often counter productive,
it is almost always better to donate
via well established and reliable charities
that already exist.
That's probably all I want to say about this
because I'm not a journalist,
I've not attempted to conduct interviews
with everybody involved.
I don't want to misrepresent anything,
this is not a comprehensive account of the scheme
or the situation,
I just wanted to flag how good people and good intentions
can go awry.
And the medical profession's relationship with social media
is one I find very interesting
but is evolving and I think it's instructive
to look at potential missteps,
particularly because I know a lot of my viewers
are healthcare students about to start their careers.
I teach medical and nursing students regularly,
I know you guys follow a lot these people.
So might see their involvement in something like this
as an endorsement of its legitimacy.
And to reiterate that I'm not suggesting any wrong doing,
just a little bit of caution.
I've had the excesses of medical influencers
on my 'to do list' of video titles for ages now,
because, like Will Smith's marriage,
it is just a succession of calamities
that I can't look away from.
Oh and by the way that list of video titles,
potential video titles is now over 200.
So when you send me ideas which I really appreciate,
I am not ignoring you,
I'm just slow.
And on the subject of social media and medics
I definitely do want to do a deep dive
into a superficial field,
and that is just a purely anatomically comment, because
I want to do a video on social media plastic surgeons
Because some of the stuff I've seen...
would make the content of this video look tame.
But when I thought about how I'd cover THIS particular topic
I always imagined it'd be about doctor influencers
on Instagram hawking supplements
or promoting quack therapies,
or toxic productivity, breaching confidentiality...
But I think this NFT thing, kind of demonstrates
a lot of those phenomena beautifully.
I am sure these are good people who want to do good things,
but are perhaps guilty of being a bit naive
and I'm sure when they see TACA's involvement
and background
they'll feel they could've done their due diligence better.
And ask some details about the charity.
I don't think doctors should be martyrs,
and can never earn money outside their job,
that would be tremendously hypocritical.
I have taken sponsorships on this channel,
I'm also not going to judge anyone,
and I do genuinely believe
that these haven't set out to scam anybody,
we all make errors of judgment.
But to any content creators out there,
especially those of you in positions of trust
like healthcare professionals,
just exercise a little bit of caution,
about what apparently exciting and profitable schemes
you get involved with.
So until next time kids, just say no to NFTs
and yes to LFTs.
That's liver function tests not lateral flow tests,
and no pandemic is going to make me change my mind.
Love for the OG biochemists out there.
Say no to the Metaverse and yes to meta-analysis.
Say no to dodgy crypto and yes to cryptogenic stroke.
Okay, maybe that one doesn't quite work so well.
And of course let the only pump that you invest in
be the four chambered one right here.
Pre-load up today, this your boy Money Medlife signing off.