Philly TikTok doc is changing the way people get their health information

Jun. 15, 2021

If you've never giggled over the thought of a colonoscopy or establish anything remotely amusing about trying to understand coronavirus infection rates, information technology's probable considering yous've never watched gastroenterologist Austin Chiang address these issues on TikTok. (You lot can—and should!—watch him do that here and here.)

Over the class of a couple years, this 35-year-quondam triple threat—Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals' director of the Endoscopic Bariatric Program, assistant professor of medicine, and principal medical social media officer—has taken on a number of serious wellness issues on his TikTok aqueduct, educating viewers via a medium about often associated with viral choreographed dances. In short micro-videos, he imparts an impressive corporeality of information to his public, garnering millions of views as he busts mistruths, shares medical facts and absolutely slays. And yes, sometimes there are choreographed dances. (So … quadruple threat?)

Chiang, who'south approaching a one-half-million followers on TikTok (and virtually 67,000 more on Instagram, plus another xiii,300 on Twitter), didn't prepare out to exist a social media star. He aspired only to share sound, cite medical information with a public who seemed to increasingly be getting medical advice from questionable sources. "I noticed my patients weren't getting information from clinical encounters, but through everything they were exposed to outside of the hospital," Chiang says. Namely? Social media.

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And so, some years back, Chiang set well-nigh trying to create a professional social media account for a partitioning in which he was working, but ran into enough blood-red record that he transitioned his own personal Twitter presence into a professional one, while diving into bookish research about social media.

From there, information technology snowballed, both in a professional sense (today, he's one of a very few health-system social media officers in the state) and online: Twitter led to Instagram, which led to to TikTok, which has led to, yes, a particular sort of fame congenital around sharing medical info and combating all the garbage out there in short, engaging and memorable videos.

In Philly, Chiang occasionally gets recognized and stopped on the street ("I love that," he says), simply he's also been featured on MSNBC and BBC News, as well as in Men's Wellness, the Inky, and the New York Times . "Seriously," the NYT reporter marveled, "he makes learning about acid reflux fun."

"I noticed my patients weren't getting information from clinical encounters, merely through everything they were exposed to outside of the hospital," Chiang says. Namely? Social media.

Humanizing medicine

Not surprisingly, Chiang and his online persona attracted a decent amount of attention during Covid, when he ofttimes used his platform to address new findings and questions on pandemic-related topics at a time when the world was hungry for trustworthy info.

"I honestly felt it was helpful to be there," he says, "and felt some pressure in beingness a phonation online for that, even knowing there might be backfire and anti-vaccine sentiment. But I always felt it was more than important to get discussion out and cite my sources, knowing that I have the evidence to back it up." (This was non a wholly uncommon sentiment during Covid, even in Philly: At Penn, for instance, a group of scientists who dubbed themselves "the Nerdy Girls" took to Twitter with "Honey Pandemic" to combat misinformation and share scientific truths.)

For Chiang's part, one time some of the basics were "hashed out," when people started delving into the granular questions, "I took a little step dorsum considering I felt those were questions for immunologists and I wasn't the person to ask," he says. Sure, someday there's big Covid news, like a shift in mask protocol or some such, he'll comment on it. "But pandemic aside, I don't usually desire to stride out of my lane"—all things GI wellness—"considering I want to put out authentic information."

@austinchiangmd

Enormous pet peeve ⚠️ #guthealth #guttok

♬ Mario Kart Get Brrrr – Breye

And that—spreading authentic information—is the whole bespeak of all of this. The accolades are squeamish, but it'south really nearly public health, about connecting with and meeting people where they are, Chiang says.

"Information technology'south go quite credible that health intendance professionals need to be on social media platforms," he says. In function, this helps "to go information out and reduce the distance between us and the patient." Information technology too helps to humanize them, which is specially important now, Chiang believes, "because trust in health care is at an all-fourth dimension low. I think if we tin put a bit of personality into it, information technology might assistance people recognize that we take the same struggles and interests that everyone else does."

Ideally, he says, seeing health intendance professionals on media like TikTok dispels the image of doctors every bit intimidating, robotic and distant authority figures. "That's a product of what health intendance delivery looks like these days. We're held to such tight constraints." Social media feels like a natural antidote to at to the lowest degree some of that.

"It's become quite apparent that health care professionals demand to be on social media platforms," Chiang says

Meantime, advice has long been a part of what Chiang sees as his role in medicine, even across the ane-on-one relationships he has with patients. Not long after getting his Doc from Columbia, he got his MPH—that's a Main of Public Health caste—from Harvard. That was in 2017; in 2018, after a fellowship in advanced endoscopy at Jefferson, he decided to stay on at Jeff as the director of the endoscopic bariatric plan and chief medical social media officer.

In the latter part, says John Brand, Chief Communications Officer for Jefferson Health, Chiang is "integral in helping to advance social media across our enterprise, from onboarding physicians on social platforms to educating them on the dos and don'ts of social media." Throughout the pandemic, Brand adds, Jefferson Health'due south Health Nexus also worked "to provide our audiences with authentic, truthful and timely wellness data"—and Chiang "shares our passion for rooting out the inaccuracies that proliferate social media today, which allows our audiences to build a deeper, more meaningful relationship with Jefferson at all times of the day, not merely when they're sick and looking for care."

On a wider stage, likewise, Chiang is something of a medical social media evangelical: In 2019, he co-founded the Clan for Healthcare Social Media (AHSM), a professional order that unofficially got its commencement in 2018, when a pocket-sized group of wellness professionals, including Chiang, launched a hashtag campaign, #verifyhealthcare, encouraging health experts on social media to disclose their backgrounds and credentials. (Online, Chiang explains, "you accept people masquerading equally healthcare professionals all the time.")

That campaign sparked conversations about helping medical professionals get online, increase their social media presence and avoid the potential pitfalls of going public—all the while improving "the integrity and public transparency of online medical data." This is what AHSM does today, providing education and resources nearly evidence-based best practices, and advocating for social media platforms every bit public health tools. Currently, the society is more than 700 members strong.

So can we expect Social Media 101 as part of medical-school curriculum now? "I think some institutions are moving toward that," Chiang says—Jefferson potentially included.

At a moment when social media platforms are also grappling with misinformation on their sites (some grappling more than others), AHSM has actually developed relationships with some of them.

"YouTube has been slap-up," Chiang says, "and even put on courses like YouTube 101, showing people how to optimize home prepare-ups for filming, and how to look at analytics and see where you tin do better." LinkedIn and Pinterest, too, accept gotten involved: "They realize they want accurate voices on their platforms," he says.

"I never danced in public earlier TikTok"

When it comes to the flip side—encouraging fellow practitioners to embrace social media every bit a professional tool—Chiang's the first person to admit that continuing in front of a camera talking (or lip-synching, or dancing) isn't for everyone. He understands first-hand the hurdles for people who have studied medicine rather than, say, communications. (Or theater.) "In that location take definitely been moments where I've had to step outside my condolement zone and take a run a risk," he says. "I never danced in public before TikTok."

Some amount of confidence comes with positive reinforcement and with practice, he says, simply notwithstanding, "I'm not here to force anyone to put themselves out in public," he says. "Nosotros all accept a dissimilar threshold for that." What he does do is encourage people he thinks volition accept a knack for it, and speaks to practitioners and students about using the platforms safely and finer (and with limited time).

@austinchiangmd

2021 is when nosotros end this. 🙏 #vaccine

♬ I got antiBODY YODY YODY YODY – Amanders

Across his impressive number of followers and award nominations similar this one, there aren't obvious metrics to track Chiang'due south influence (or that of his AHSM peers) on his medical peers, but in that location has been a noticeable uptick of docs on TikTok over the past year or 2. He thinks he'south converted far more consumers than creators, he says, but in whatever case, he'due south happy to see more professionals getting on the app and out of their beat. "I'k glad to run into people have been receptive to it."

So can we expect Social Media 101 as part of medical-schoolhouse curriculum now? "I remember some institutions are moving toward that," he says—Jefferson potentially included. For now, though, that looks less like a formalized curriculum and more like Chiang's presentations to medical students.

Truth is, he says, "there are and then many things that aren't medicine that I think are still of import for health practitioners to sympathise." Everyone has a unlike goal and purpose when it comes to their field, he adds. "There's an unlimited amount of information to pack in. You have to option and cull."

"What the pandemic has highlighted is that we all have some degree of responsibility here. We tin complain about what's happened, about all the misinformation, only part of it is that we're not always so good at reaching people and actually communicating information in digestible ways."

For all sorts of digestible medical tidbits—plus loads of hip-hop, lip-syncs and an occasional dose of women- , AAPI- and LGBTQ+ empowerment—you can follow Chiang on TikTok, YouTube, Insta and Facebook.

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/austin-chiang-tiktok-doc/

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