- The most degrading offensive assumption filled question
that I get asked way too often, mostly on social media,
but perhaps maybe even in real life is,
I live a very weird life.
I've spent over 10 years studying to become a doctor.
And when I finally became one,
I split my time between the hospital
and social media and media.
So there's not many doctors out there like me
and I wanna share with you what it's like
being a doctor, YouTuber, media personality,
what does that all mean, what challenges do I face,
and most importantly,
answer some of your most frequently asked questions.
I am a real doctor.
I mean, I get that asked all the time.
It would happen a lot more when I was in residency training,
but now still, when I tell people what I do,
they're like, but are you a real doctor?
I'm a true family medicine physician, board certified.
I keep up with my licenses, both in New York and New Jersey,
even though I do most of my practicing in New Jersey.
I work half the week
in an outpatient family medicine center.
I actually have done a full day in my life video,
that's linked down below,
and I'm actually in the process of shooting
another day in my life in the coming weeks.
I'm really excited to share that with you.
For those of you who don't know,
being a family medicine doctor means
I treat patients of all ages for all types of conditions.
And why I love the field of family medicine
to be in the media spotlight,
is because we have to be able to talk
on all different types of subjects.
We have to digest information from specialists,
complex information from specialists, really quickly
and make it easily understandable for my patients.
I also have to predict what questions my patients have.
Oftentimes that intersect with the questions that you have.
So I think the more I practice
in being a doctor in real life,
the better I become on YouTube.
But at the same time, the more time I spend
researching different subjects for YouTube,
the more value I bring to my patients.
It's like one hand truly does feed the other.
People will see me getting out of my car and say,
you're Dr Mike, hey Dr Mike, I have this thing.
Do you think I need to go get it checked out?
Not only is that unethical that they're doing that because,
you can't really make a good diagnosis in that setting,
but it's also kind of like an invasion of privacy
that I never expected to face.
When we're in med school, we were actually trained
to deal with something known as cocktail medicine.
And cocktail medicine is when you're at a bar with a friend
and they say, hey you're a doctor,
let me pick your mind about something.
You have to be very clear and specific
that you're not establishing a doctor patient relationship.
Because when you do that,
you're actually becoming liable for the results
that they experience in taking your advice.
So you learn how to straddle this line of,
explaining that you're speaking in generalities,
you're not giving direct advice.
And I've gotten better over time in doing this,
that's why I was able to launch my Curbside Consult Series,
where I literally run around the streets of New York city
answering people's questions.
And I've leaned into this uncomfortable uncertain situation.
And the more that I've done that,
the better I've become,
and the less stress it's taken off of my shoulders.
Now, this is very, very difficult,
but also really important
to the integrity of me as a physician.
Unlike most influencers or most celebrities,
when they give advice, they're giving advice personally,
but I'm giving advice not only personally, but as an expert.
So I need to understand that the weight of my message
is higher than that of a traditional influencer.
And I need to put that extra level
of integrity on top of it.
So you'll never see me advertise something
that I truly do not believe in,
or that evidence based science doesn't stand behind as well.
Being financially successful is great,
but I'm never gonna do that at the expense of my patients
or you, my viewer.
My relationship with my patients has absolutely changed
since I became popular, but it's changed for the better.
These are hypothetical based on true examples.
Patient A is a 26 year old female that has never went
for a preventive health checkup that has now come in,
and gotten her first pap smear
with a family medicine doctor,
because she felt comfortable
after watching a few of my videos.
Guess what?
We found an irregularity on that pap smear.
We're able to act upon that,
and prevent a case, a potential future case of cancer.
Second example.
I have patients who are looking to lose weight,
and they wanna do it in a healthy way,
they wanna see what options they have.
Sometimes we run out of time in a visit.
And they say, doctor do you have more resources
for me to look at?
I trust your opinion.
Well, now I can direct them to videos on my channel.
They can watch those videos, pick up little tidbits,
and on the next visit,
they can bring me their list of questions
so that I can answer them,
and they can make the best decision for what works for them.
And the third example, when a patient
doesn't know they're gonna see me,
I walk into the room and they freak out
because they're like, my God,
I was just watching one of your COVID-19 videos.
Or I was watching one of your Grey's Anatomy reviews.
And now you're my actual doctor.
And they're just so much more dialed in on that visit.
They're excited, they wanna take control of their health.
I mean, that is what every doctor wants from their patients.
For them to get excited about health literacy,
to learn about what medications they're taking,
what preventive things they should be doing
to improve their health.
And when someone watches that on my channel
and then sees me in the office,
that motivation goes through the roof.
That's one of those things that brings me so much joy,
because it oftentimes happens in the pediatric population.
So when I see a 10 year old who's struggling,
or 13 year old who's struggling in school
getting bullied perhaps,
and they feel comfortable talking to me
about their mental health struggles,
or what's going on at home,
I consider that a major, major win.
When it comes to being someone who has a lot of followers,
there's gonna be things that we all share in common,
with that unique group of people.
Like I even talked about it
with Emma Chamberlain on the channel,
that interview's link down below.
People recognize you,
they make assumptions about you,
they think they know you simply because
they saw you on the YouTube channel.
When it comes to being a popular person, I think for me,
one of the things that people talk about most often,
is the loss of privacy.
That's absolutely true.
People are really involved in your personal life,
whether it's digging through your relationships,
your past relationships,
what's going on in your family life.
Sometimes that gets quite weird,
especially when emails are getting sent around to,
friends, relatives.
I mean the amount of fake accounts on social media
using my face, or my name is incredible.
Please do not fall for it.
Look for the blue verified check mark.
All my accounts are verified.
The sad part about it is,
they oftentimes cheat people out of money,
by pretending to be me, getting them to send pictures,
share intimate things about their life,
even getting financial benefits from doing so.
Another thing that happens is,
negative comments, trolls, death threats.
I choose not to focus or dwell on it so much.
I also think that I'm lucky.
There's a lot of positivity on the channel, thanks to you.
I think I approach a lot of
these very difficult issues with empathy.
It doesn't trigger as many people to come after me
in a hateful type of way.
I hope to continue this moving forward in the future,
where we have more fruitful discussions,
less hate, less trolls.
But at the end of the day,
we just have to expect for that to happen,
take it on the chin and move on.
Because as Jonathan Haidt said on this channel,
we have to become okay
with being treated unfairly or poorly.
I'm probably mincing words,
but it's something similar to that.
And I very much agree with it.
And being someone who was picked on a lot growing up,
I think I've learned how to handle that well,
and use it in a positive way
to motivate me, to help me improve,
because ultimately that's what we all need to do,
if we wanna get further in life.
I studied over 10 years to get here.
I did it because I love it.
I'm passionate about it.
Nothing will ever replace the joy that I feel
in being in a room with a patient, helping them,
being one-on-one, being in that moment.
The most degrading offensive assumption filled question
that I get asked way too often, mostly on social media,
why did you become a doctor
when you could have been a model?
As if those two careers are inter-changeable.
When you ask that question,
you're almost making the assumption in saying,
you can't be a doctor who's also good-looking,
or you can't also be a model and be smart at the same time.
I actually just got a few DMs the other day
from female doctors, who were saying
that they're struggling with that same thing.
The issue that people aren't taking them seriously,
because they are beautiful.
Why? Judging someone based on their looks is useless.
In fact, I pride myself on proving people wrong in that.
In high school I was the president
of the Math and Science Institute.
It was one of the most highly regarded types of classes
that we had in our school.
Because of that, I had to go to the principal's office
for a meeting every three months.
When I'm sitting in the principal's office,
I was dressed kind of gangster,
because that's how I liked to dress.
Baggy clothes, jeans like falling off of my hips,
that was the style back then,
I was really into it.
Principal walks into the room and says,
what are you here for detention?
I was like, no, I'm actually here
for the Math and Science Institute,
principal's bimonthly meeting.
I'm actually the president as well.
The look on her face gave me goosebumps.
I love that feeling.
And I encourage those who are facing the discrimination
for looking a specific way,
to try and use that to energize them.
Or, better yet something that I've learned over time to do,
just prove people wrong with your results.
Put blinders on, get to where you need to be.
If someone is being discriminatory
because of the way you look,
that's a whole another issue and you actually,
you should absolutely address that.
But if someone says, you're too beautiful to do this,
brush that ish off, move on
and crush with your knowledge and experience.
Check out this hilarious TikTok video
or my recent memes video that you may have missed.
And it was always, stay happy and healthy.
(funky music)