- Dr. Chowdhary, MD.
"If you are true #heforshe,
then you must speak up against this disturbing study.
Three men created fake social media accounts
to purposefully spy on applicants.
Worse, they are shaming our women physician colleagues
for wearing bikinis.
#MedTwitter, #MedBikini, #retraction."
This is a study we got to talk about
on this week's Wednesday Checkup.
(upbeat music)
There was a study published late last year
that wanted to take a look at the unprofessional behavior
or the potential unprofessional behavior on social media,
by young vascular doctors.
So what they did was they compiled a list
of recently trained vascular surgeons,
specifically young ones.
They scoured their social media profiles:
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
Interestingly, they had three male individuals
do this scouring, which kind of creates a bias,
but we'll discuss that in a bit.
And what they found was about 25%
of these young doctors that they looked at
had "potentially unprofessional behavior"
or "clearly unprofessional behavior."
And the reason I point out these two definitions
is because it's gonna make a big, big difference
as to the utility, honesty, integrity,
everything about this study.
Let's define those terms.
The study defines clearly unprofessional content
as Health Insurance Portability
Accountability Act violations,
that's HIPAA violations, patient privacy violations.
Intoxicated appearance, unlawful behavior,
possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia,
and uncensored profanity,
or offensive comments about colleagues, work, or patients.
I think you and I will both agree
that's clearly unprofessional behavior.
You shouldn't talk bad about your patients or colleagues.
You shouldn't be doing illegal acts
or drugs or anything like that.
And your patient's privacy is of utmost importance,
does not belong anywhere on social media.
All of these make sense,
but they had to include this list
of potentially unprofessional pieces of content.
And the way that they define
potentially unprofessional content is as follows.
Holding or consuming alcohol,
inappropriate attire, censored profanity,
controversial political or religious comments,
and controversial social topics.
This definition is what completely
de-legitimizes this study.
Had they only include
the clearly unprofessional content, great.
People would have benefited from this study.
They would have applauded it.
But instead, they've included this subjective,
heavily, heavily biased portion
of potentially unprofessional content
and destroyed this article.
I mean it's full of subjective, cognitive, even gender bias.
Some may even go as far as calling it sexist,
and I really do support them on that.
Doctors are humans too.
The more patients see us as humans too,
the more likely they are to trust us,
the better we can communicate,
the more likely we're to have
better health outcomes for them.
This elitist super professional version of doctors
needs to disappear.
And studies like this that perpetuate this elitist notion
really do us a major disservice.
In fact, there was so many of my colleagues
that were upset by this study,
that there was a trending Twitter hashtag called #medbikini,
with many of my colleagues posing in their beachwear,
which is a totally appropriate thing to do.
Doctors are humans.
Humans like having fun, they like going to the beach.
Humans that are of age that are off duty
can have a glass of wine and take a picture with it
and shouldn't be afraid to do so.
In fact, I'm partially part of the problem.
I remember when I was going out,
I'm not going out as much often anymore,
but if I was to take a picture with someone
and I'm holding a glass of wine,
I would try and do my best to hide it
'cause I was worried people would judge me.
We need to become more relatable.
Really lean into showing our lives on social media
and you don't have to do it, but if you want to,
there should be no program directors
or scientific researchers stopping you from doing it.
And then to say, "Doctors shouldn't be commenting
on controversial social topics."
You wanna exclude doctors, healthcare professionals
on the topics of gun control and abortion?
These are some of the topics
where a healthcare voice is of utmost importance.
As I look through Twitter in the midst of conversations
on controversial social topics,
I wish there were more healthcare voices there.
I wish there was more healthcare literacy
and accuracy in these conversations.
Just in the last year of this channel,
we've talked about racial, gender bias,
reopening of schools, political misinformation, fatphobia,
and even the recent Black Lives Matter protests.
As a physician, social media communicator, influencer,
I take my role here seriously.
I do my research.
I wanna put out accurate info
surrounding these controversial topics
so that individuals like yourself
can make the best decisions for yourself
and your family members.
To say that I'm acting unprofessional by doing this?
I don't even know where that's coming from.
This is one of the most shared stories of #medbikini.
The username of this doctor
on Instagram is drcandysurfvival.
Surf-vival, it's witty.
Her real name here's listed as Dr. Candice Myhre.
Hope I'm pronouncing that right.
She shares an anecdote, a really powerful anecdote
along with some pictures.
Let's read along together.
"Dr. Bikini will save your life in the middle of the ocean
when you get it hit by a boat.
I will take you out of the ocean
on a surfboard turned into a backboard,
tie off your exsanguinating wound," bleeding out,
"with my rash guard.
Take you to my under equipped urgent care,
stabilize you in one hour
with an IV, oxygen, morphine, fluids, Foley,
and put your open femur fracture in Bucks traction,
fly you by helicopter to a local hospital,
order and interpret all the labs, X-rays, CT scans,
suture/staple all of your wounds,
splint your clavicle/humerus and scapula fractures,
sedate you, put a chest tube
in your five-rib fractured hemopneumothorax,"
that's blood and air in your chest,
"and fly you by jet to a specialty hospital
in another country, all in my, you guessed it, bikini."
"I am an emergency medicine physician standing
in solidarity with my female vascular surgeons today.
News flash: female doctors can wear whatever they want."
And I agree.
I want the authors of that study
to look at this photo of a doctor
saving a life in a bikini,
and to say that this is unprofessional?
Come on, we have to be realistic.
We have to learn from these opportunities
and understand that sometimes our cognitive biases
really blind us to the truth.
I'm really encouraged and proud even of Dr. Myhre
for leading by example, using this anecdote
to teach us about the fact that we should look further
than what a person is wearing or what they're drinking,
to determine whether or not they're professional.
In fact, that term unprofessional has been thrown around
in my life so often.
I mean, when I started my social media in medical school,
people told me that I should delete it
because it was unprofessional for doctors to take selfies.
It was unprofessional for me to take pictures in the gym,
or with my family, or at the beach.
I didn't want to argue with those people.
I didn't think that argument would go very far.
I thought that if I believed in my message
to become more relatable
as a family medicine physician to my patients,
then I would create a healthier conversation,
a more inclusive conversation.
And now having the YouTube channel nearly
at six million subscribers, which by the way,
I owe you a huge thank you for.
Patients who have never seen me before,
who haven't seen a doctor before, were scared to,
are now coming in getting cancer checks.
They're getting their vaccines
because they've learned the risk
versus benefit conversation.
Patients now know the difference between good research
and bad research from watching my channel.
And in my office, I see this happening day in and day out.
And just to give you a final update on this story,
this study was officially retracted.
It was pulled.
It is no longer a valid study in this journal.
And the editor's statement, here's a little highlight,
reads as such.
"Although the editors of the JVS believe
that the authors of this paper were attempting
to advise young vascular surgeons about the risks
of social media, their review process failed
to identify the errors in the design of the study
with regards to conscious and unconscious bias,
and thus the published paper was interpreted
as broadening inequities in surgery.
The editors therefore decided there was sufficient rationale
to retract the article."
And I completely agree.
I think if you're part of a legitimate medical society
and you wanna talk about social media
from a research standpoint, please go ahead
and talk to some experienced social media physicians.
There's so many of them.
In fact, I had 100 of them on my channel
talking about what it's like to be doctors,
both in person and online.
So check out this video here,
or check out my conversation here
with Dr. Fauci on COVID-19.
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