(hip hop music) - Hey guys, I wanted to bring you part two of my medical journey. When I made part one talking about college and medical school, I asked if you wanted to
see the rest of my journey, talking about residency, social
media, traditional media, and you seemed to really want it. So here we go, let's get started. I'm gonna talk about everything
from medical school on. I think a good place to jump in here would be to talk about the Match process. I know that gives people a lot of anxiety when we talk about the Match, because it's complicated,
it's a major life moment that decides where you're gonna
be for the next few years, and I totally understand that. And especially, there's
a lot of changes going on with the current Match system, because the DO Match and the MD Match are actually combining, and are gonna become one Match in 2020, so that brings an extra layer
of anxiety along with it. When I was going through
the Match process, you had to decide if you were
gonna forgo the DO Match, and go straight to the MD Match, or you can participate in
both Matches, actually. I've seen some people do that. They would pick a couple of
their favorite DO programs. And if they didn't get into those, then they would
automatically be pushed over into the MD Match. I was going only for the DO Match. I didn't wanna do the MD Match, because I really believe
in the DO philosophy. I wanted to train under
osteopathic physicians, and continue honing my DO skills. Not only do I believe in the philosophy of treating a patient as a whole, and everything else that comes along with being an osteopath, but also doing the
osteopathic manipulation. I've seen some great
results with my patients, low-risk tool that I have in my tool belt that I can use in addition
to medicines and surgery. I interviewed at probably,
it was a large amount. Most people don't interview
in as many places as I did. But I wanted to get a good
picture of what it was like in each of these hospitals. So I think I interviewed at a total of maybe 12 to 15 different hospitals. I applied to probably 30 places. I went as far as interviewing in places like Florida, just because I wanted to see how different the healthcare system was within Florida, within
New York, New Jersey, Long Island even. And I found that my top two choices that I really enjoyed for family medicine were Overlook Medical Center, and Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York. What really turned the
tide for me was that in Overlook Medical Center, the residents got along really well, and in residency programs, it's not unusual to see
bickering between residents, especially because it's such
a stressful time in your life. You think about how many hours
you're committing to work. These people essentially
become your family. So it's really important
that you get along with your co-residents, because you're gonna be spending a lot, a lot of time with them. I saw the relationship
between the residents, I saw that they were being true. They weren't putting on a
show during interview day. And when you go on some
of your interviews, if you're going through this process, you're gonna see a lot
of fake stuff happen. You're gonna see program directors, you're gonna see residents,
you're gonna see secretaries, they're gonna put on shows for you. And I understand that, if you're trying to make a
good impression on somebody, you're gonna put your best foot forward. But what was nice in Overlook, I saw that the residents
weren't putting on a show. They were honest, they
really were friends. You could see that even
when you walked away from the interview process, you were able to see that
they were really friends. They were talking, they were
making plans to hang out. Plus, Overlook does a really great job at allowing you to hang
out with the residents, even go for lunch with
some of the residents. Something that I do encourage
everybody to take advantage of if they're considering choosing
a specific residency program is doing something called the second look. A second look is
basically when you come in on a non-interview day, and shadow one of the
residents around for the day to see what their daily duties are like. Definitely take advantage of this. Number one, you get to see
what the program is like when they're not putting
their best foot forward, when there may be an incident, where they might, when
something might go wrong, and you get to see what it's like, and how they handle those situations. Funny enough, I think that I
did my second look for Overlook on Christmas, either Christmas
or maybe Christmas Eve. So you would think, right, you're going into a residency program where residents are
working a major holiday. And you would think they'd
all be unhappy, right, because it's a major holiday, they're away from their families. None of that. I sat in on rounds, I went
into the hospital with them, I got to see what they did on a regular basis on a given day, even on a day like
Christmas or Christmas Eve, whatever the holiday was. And guess what, they had great attitudes, they all got along very well, and most importantly, they were humble. In medicine, things change all the time. We'll make one recommendation only to change it back to
the previous recommendation a few years later, this happens. We've seen this with coffee. In the 80s, we were saying coffee gives you pancreatic cancer. In 2017, studies are saying
it makes you live longer. I think a good doctor is a
good skeptic of themselves. That's why I always
highlight that a good doctor should never be scared to say
I don't know, and in fact, say that the reason that
I know this information is 'cause it's based
on the best information available to me now, but it
may change in the future. We have to come with
that kind of open mind when we're treating our patients. And that's the exact type of personality and leadership that I saw
in Overlook Medical Center. I saw Dr. Tribuna, who's
my program director. I saw Dr. Davine talk about those things. I saw that leadership happen
amongst the residents, and I said, this is a
place where I wanna train. These are the types of
residents and leadership I want to surround myself with. They were amazing with
their bedside manner, they were humble, they knew
what their limitations were. These are definitely characteristics that I wanted to carry
on as a physician myself. After leaving my second look,
and doing the ranking process, I ranked Overlook Medical
Center as my first choice, Jamaica Hospital as my second choice. Oh, let me get into the interview portion out of some of these hospitals,
'cause this gets funny, and I don't want this to throw you. In the previous video, I talked about what it means to have a good interview. It's all about being yourself, it's all about telling your story, and it's all about vocalizing
your story, and your answers to yourself before you
go in for that interview. Some of these interviews, and I'm not gonna name the programs 'cause I don't wanna bad-mouth anybody, but they get just incredibly strange. Strange is the right word for it, because they ask really weird questions. I remember a doctor at a New
Jersey hospital asking me what, if I was a vegetable,
what vegetable would I be? Or if I was a candy,
what candy would I be? And then I remember in one
hospital in Long Island, one of the directors, actually,
he wasn't even a director, he was the behavioral
psychologist for that program, asking me this series of questions, and it was really strange. He told me, pick a person
that you think knows you best, and think about that person. And then he said, now
answer these questions as if you're that person. Let's say I said my friend Mark was the person that knew me best. What would Mark say is
Mike's biggest strength, a.k.a. my strength, and
then I had to answer. And then he said, what would Mark say, you know, Mike's a great guy, but what's his biggest weakness? And he framed the whole interview as if he was interviewing
Mark, not myself. This may be a psychological, interesting way of interviewing somebody, but it's not human,
and I didn't like that. I don't like when you try and
play psychological mind games during an interview. That's not what it's supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about a
one-on-one human connection. I never like those types of questions. When someone asks you
them, answer them openly, answer them honestly, be human. Don't be afraid to talk about your faults. I did all those interviews. I picked Overlook as my number one choice. I was very nervous, wondering
where I would end up, because you are gonna spend the next three years of your life at that place, and I know some people
that go into very, very competitive specialties. Some of them are competitive because there's only single
number of spots in a state, so they apply all across the country, and they don't know if next, for the next three to five years, they're gonna be in
California, in New York, in Florida, in Texas. You will see tears on Match Day. You will see smiles on Match Day. It's a very, very tedious, unique process that applies to the medical journey. Now on my Match Day, I was doing rotations in
Trinitas Hospital in New Jersey for my internal medicine sub-I, and a sub-I is basically a sub-internship. You're basically the intern, which is your first year of residency. You're basically the intern's assistant, and you get to do a lot of the things that the average third year
medical student can't do. And I was doing that, and
I got an email on my phone saying that I successfully matched with Overlook Medical Center. I was so excited. I mean, to get your number one choice in whatever specialty
you're going for is amazing. I remember Dr. Tribunal leaving
me a very kind voicemail welcoming me to the program, telling me how they're
very excited to have me. And something that I
really liked that he said, and I still can't really
get comfortable doing, is he said, from now on, it's
not Dr. Tribuna, it's Joe. And he wanted to call
him by his first name. And I couldn't get used to that. I was there for three years. Every day that I would see him, I would say Dr. Tribuna out of respect. And he would say, Mike, Joe, it's Joe. And he would try and
get me to call him Joe. He does that with all his residents. The nicest program director ever. Smart, probably the best,
I'm comfortable saying that, the best bedside manner
I've seen in a physician. We talked afterwards on the
phone, both were really excited. And it was time to start
my medical journey. I graduated, boom, I'm a
doctor, I got my DO degree. And I had basically a month to relax before residency started. And I want to urge all of you. If you have some time off
before your residency starts, please enjoy it. Go party, go explore, vacation, whatever you need to do to
enjoy yourself, please do it. Now I'm not saying that because residency's a
horrible time in your life, but I will tell you it
is a stressful time. There's gonna be an insane time commitment that you're gonna have to
dedicate to the program, and it's needed, you need
to commit that much time in order to have a solid foundation for your medical learning. I went on some vacations during that time. So when I came into
residency, I was fresh. That's what you wanna do. You wanna come in fresh,
eager, ready to learn. The last thing you wanna do is overwhelm yourself
with research or something and then come in completely
burned out into a place where the burnout rate is
really high on its own. Now, you're going into
residency and you're wondering, what should I do so that I learn the most, or that I'm prepared the most? Nothing. Yes, you can read some books, you can look over some manuals, and have some handouts in your
pockets in your white coat, but nothing's gonna prepare you for what you're gonna
experience in residency. I don't mean to sound dire, it's not that crazy and dangerous. But residency's tricky. You're gonna be interacting
with a lot of different people. Nurses, doctors, MAs, janitorial staff, phlebotomists, patients,
patients' family members, insurance companies, I mean, the amount of people you communicate with on a daily basis is gonna be amazing. You're not gonna know
how to handle everything. You have to not be
afraid to ask questions. That's the number one thing in residency. If you're confident
about something, great. But if you're the slightest bit unsure, either A, look it up, or
B, ask a senior for advice. Because the last thing you wanna do is hurt a patient, hurt
a patient's family member because you're too proud
to confirm your knowledge. I despise that about some people that are what we call
cowboys in the field. They think that they read something somewhere on the Internet, now they know everything
about the subject, and they're gonna write all these orders, put in all these medications,
without double-checking. I double-checked everything, even things I was
somewhat comfortable with. I asked the senior to make sure that they saw me do the procedure, saw me do the order right, so I was treating the patient
to the best of my ability. Obviously, as you get more comfortable throughout your time in residency, you'll be doing that less and less, and you're gonna be
teaching more and more. When residency first started, my first two months were
on the surgical floor. I was basically an
acting surgery resident. And what's interesting about
Overlook Medical Center is that not only are Overlook
residents there doing surgery, but also Columbia residents
are doing surgery there. And that's why, fun fact, Dr. Oz actually did some of his training
at Overlook Medical Center as part of his residency. And basically, what
happens is as an intern, you get partnered up with
a senior Columbia resident, and they basically teach you the ropes, allow you to carry the pager,
scrub in into some operations. Basically, jump in in the first week, and you're taking care of patients. Someone's having high blood pressure, someone's becoming tachycardic, meaning their heart's beating fast, bradycardic, the other way, their heart is beating really slow. You're the one that's getting paged first, you're the one responsible. And while I was happy to
have that responsibility, I was also nervous, and
it's okay to be nervous. Nervous energy can be good
energy if it's not chronic, meaning it doesn't happen
over a long period of time. You need to embrace that energy, and say, this energy, this anxiety, is preparing me to take on this challenge of taking on these pages, these
patients, and all of that. Initially, when I got some of those pages, I may have been a little too nervous, and maybe asked my
seniors for too much help, just because I wasn't confident, especially because during my fourth year, I did a lot of family medicine rotations where you don't do a lot of surgery, and I was doing that because
I wanted to figure out where I wanted to end up
in terms of my residency. But because that, I didn't have a lot of
surgical experience. So I relied very heavily on the Columbia surgical
residents to help me out. But then as the weeks went by, I became more and more comfortable
in managing the patients. I became more and more
comfortable answering pages, and it's really important,
because when you're on call, it's the middle of the
night, you get a page, you have to answer it, your senior is likely scrubbed
in in the middle of the night in an intense surgery,
and so is the attending. So, you don't really have
anyone to go for answers, unless it's obviously a dire emergency. So you get very good at using
some of the hospital resources like UpToDate, which is basically
a system that we look for for evidence-based medicine information. For example, if I saw a patient that was post-surgically having a fever, you can go on UpToDate,
search post-surgical fever, and get some information about it that could help guide your
workup, your treatment, and so on, so forth. This is where it's probably
really important to mention that during med school, I
started an instagram account. And initially, it was
dr.mikeee or something. It was like dr_mike with three
Es or something like that, because I wanted to show what it was like to be just an ordinary medical
student, nothing special. But be able to enjoy your life. Be able to have a balance
between exercise, education, social life, going out,
enjoying nice events, but still doing well in school, because I feel there exists a stigma, and I really think it's a stigma, that if you go into medical school, you have to give up your life. Myth busted, that is complete BS. Everybody needs to study
very hard in medical school, but it doesn't mean that you
have to give up your life. You can study hard, you can study smart, and you can do very well while
still enjoying your life. So what I was doing, I was sort of doing a,
what was popular back then, a lot of those, not MySpace,
it came after MySpace, but it was one of those... It was like, not a blog, it was... Xanga. Basically, what I was doing was showing my life through the Internet. I was living my life through the Internet, and I was blogging. This was a new thing
that people were doing in the mid to early 2000s. Xanga, LiveJournal, these
were popular blogging sites. But I was like, I wanna
do that on Instagram. I wanna do a photo blog of my life. So I took selfies of me
in the operating room, I took selfies with my dog,
I took selfies with my dad, at fancy events throughout New York City, and people really
enjoyed what I was doing. So I built up a pretty
significant following for the average person, somewhere 20, 30,000 followers
going into residency. It was a running joke
during my intern year that people that knew me well,
they would make jokes like, oh, Dr. Mike has a lot
of followers on Instagram with his 20,000, he was a celebrity. And look, we had fun with it. The nurses had fun with it, my
co-residents had fun with it. Occasionally, they would
catch one of their friends following me, and we
would tease them about it, but whatever, it was all in good fun. I thought it was something
useful that I was doing, showing medical students what
it was like to be a doctor. Maybe people that just enjoyed medicine. And I thought that in the future, maybe this could be of some value. I didn't know exactly
how we could be of value, but I thought that it was nice that I could communicate with
thousands of people at home just how I do with everybody
in my everyday life. So despite calls from
some people saying that taking selfies was unprofessional, or being on social media
was unprofessional, I saw a greater use for it in the future. So I left it. It didn't take up much time. I would take a selfie here and there. Most people never saw me take a selfie. My dad didn't even know
I had social media, because prior to this,
I never even had Twitter or Instagram or any of this stuff. I don't think I ever overstepped the line, and gave an unrealistic
view of what I was doing. I think that when you saw me
smiling in those pictures, I wasn't just smiling for the pictures. I was smiling with my residents
a few moments before that. I worked really hard,
intern year is crazy. I've worked 36-hour shifts. When you're in the ICU, you're
working six days a week, on call every other day. Meaning that when you're on call, not only do you commit at 4:30, 5:00 A.M., but you go home at 9:00 P.M. Just think about how little time that leaves for you to sleep
or take care of yourself. It's a really grueling schedule. During that month, you learn a lot. You do that rotation I believe two times in the first of the year,
at least from my program. Boom, I'm in my second year,
and you get four weeks off. I think this is a requirement. You get four weeks off a
year during your residency. And during my first year, I didn't really have vacations towards the tail-end
of that residency year, so I did my first week of vacation in August, September of my second year. And guess what, I'm on
vacation, I'm in Florida, and all of a sudden, one
of my buddies texts me, and he said, hey man, you're on BuzzFeed. And I'm like, oh man, that's really cool, because while I've done
some little news articles here and there, I've done
some scientific publications, I've never had something as
big as BuzzFeed mention me. And I was like, oh, that's cool. I read the story, it wasn't anything about
my medical accomplishments, it was hot doctor and husky. And I was like, oh, that's nice. Awesome compliment, pretty exciting. I didn't think anything
would come from it. Then as the day went on, I started getting more and
more texts from people. Not only about BuzzFeed
now, now Elite Daily, then Huffington Post,
then AOL.com, then Time, then Cosmo, then Glamour, and all of a sudden, my
inbox starts imploding. I mean, everybody's emailing me that week. Ellen DeGeneres people,
Steve Harvey people. Everybody is saying, if you do our show, you can do our show, but
you can't do their show. If you come on Fox, you can't do CBS. By the way, I don't remember
exactly who said what, but this was all being said. And I'm a resident. I know nothing about media! I have no representation,
I have no guides. I don't even know anyone
in the industry, really. I was faced with a choice,
because I'm a professional, I'm going into a professional field, and I had to decide, do
you embrace this hot topic, sorry, this hot doctor topic, as something that you wanna go in front of millions of people
on television and talk about as if it's something you truly care about. I didn't really care that people
were calling me hot doctor. But what I did care was that suddenly, millions of people were
interested to listen to me. And I viewed that as an opportunity. Honestly, it was insane. I gained 750,000 followers
in those two weeks. My phone was just, (tongue trilling). I had to turn off notifications for the first time in my life. I've never had to do that for anything, because so many things were coming in. I was answering news agencies at the time. And it's funny. Because I was on vacation, and wasn't able to do
a lot of the news stuff till the following week, I reached out to them the following week, said sorry, it's been so crazy, I would like to come on this week. They were like, oh no,
you're old news, man. You were on last week, we
talked about you last week. This week, we have no use for you. And I realized how cut-throat
the industry was very quickly. Now, I'm getting these opportunities, my Instagram is exploding. What I felt like I had
to do with social media was find a positive outlet for it. How can I get people that are watching nonsense Kim Kardashian videos, and listening to "Percocet,
Molly, Percocet," how can I get those
people to watch my content where we can have some fun,
I'll dance like I'm a loser, whatever, have some fun, get some laughs, but also learn something in the process? I can talk about
"Percocet, Molly, Percocet" and dance to it, but I can explain to you what Percocet and Molly Percocet are. I try to find a balance between
social media and learning. How can we make those two things coexist? From that moment, that was in
2015, it's January 2018 now, a lot has transpired. I started a YouTube channel, that's how you're watching me now. I've done a lot of television. My social media has sort of transformed outside of just Instagram. It's on Facebook, Twitter, even I do some little
Snapchat here and there. I do see a lot of people asking questions and making statements
about how I am a doctor, but yet, I am also a marketer, because I do do advertisements
on my social media, and some of them say, oh,
this isn't medically ethical for you to be a good
marketer and a doctor. Those two things cannot coexist. I understand where that
sentiment comes from. I see the TV doctors
that are selling nonsense and compromising their medical ethics. I totally understand that, and
I agree with you, to a point. When I do an advertisement,
for let's say a watch company, I don't think that
compromises my medical ethics, because when I
introspectively look at that, me recommending to wear a watch, or not even recommending to wear a watch, me just saying I like this
watch, or I wear this watch, has no impact on our
doctor-patient relationship. Another place where I think that marketing can even
be good for medicine is that when I do an ad for let's say, Charmin reached out to me once
and I did an ad for Charmin, they wanted me to take a picture in front of their Charmin on the go van where people go take poops, literally, on the street, it's pretty funny. But it's part of their advertising. They wanted me to take a picture of that and show that to my Instagram community. I wanted to take the picture, but I also wanted to use this opportunity to educate you at home, and talk about the
different signs and symptoms that you should look out for that might mean something serious, or warrant further evaluation. So I told them, yes, I'll take a picture in front of the truck, but I'm gonna tell people
to look at their poop, and look at the different
changes in their poops that should require
them to go see a doctor. So I did two things in that. I advertised what they
needed me to advertise. I made money that I can use
for this YouTube channel, to educate you and
continue doing what I do, to make money for myself,
to feed my family, to feed myself, and pay
off my student loans, and I was able to get
some education across. Again, I only do advertising for companies that I believe in, that
I would actually use. I wouldn't, you know, advertise some crazy creepy products that I've been pitched in the past. I mean, I've been pitched just the nuttiest things in the world. Obviously, I've gotten seven-figure offers from vitamin supplement companies that want me to say this
is the next best thing, this is what's gonna cure what ails you. This is the solution,
I will never do that. Why, because as a doctor,
I want proof that it works, and if it works, I'll
recommend that as a doctor. I don't need to be paid to do it. That's my job, I'm
already paid to do that. I really work hard to make sure that the things that I do advertise do not cross those medical lines. Lines sometimes do get blurry, but again, I will always
make my best effort to make sure I never cross that, because I am a doctor first, well, I'm a human first,
but I'm a doctor second, and that's what's most important to me. Your health, our trust that
we form between each other is really important to me, and I think that when you're
a social media personality, that trust is even more important. I do have some more stuff to talk about. Doing television, I do a lot of TV now. Good Morning America, The
Doctors show, Rachael Ray. And that's a whole
different animal on its own. And I'm also learning that process. So if you wanna know
more about that process, and how I do it, and what I do, and what my journey's been like, comment below, give this video a like, and continue supporting good creators. 'Cause that's what it's about. It's about having a community where we're all sharing our experiences. Those who are good storytellers
continue being heard, and I really appreciate what you guys do by watching my channel,
sharing my channel, liking and commenting. I try to make a really serious effort to not only like and heart
everybody's comments, but also jump in and
reply as much as I can. I know that some of you have seen that, and they may not be paragraph replies, but again remember, I am a doctor, I am bouncing around from place to place, so I do try my best. As always, guys, thanks for watching. Stay happy and healthy. I didn't move my chair, did I? (chair creaking) This sound isn't annoying? Water, please. Pew whoo! (hip hop music)
