- 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)
Dude you should shout out your reddit to get more followers because all memes on insta are reposts from reddit
love your videos doctor mike!
what was that question