BOSTON — Mike Varshavski, a family physician and content creator who goes by Doctor Mike on YouTube, has made it his mission to combat medical misinformation. He’s attracted 14 million followers by communicating both clearly and entertainingly. He wishes leaders in medicine like the American Medical Association would do the same, he told attendees at the STAT Summit on Wednesday.
While they mean well, he said they haven’t figured out how to reach a mass audience. One example: In a recent video, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat back in his chair and claimed that doctors are profiting from keeping Americans sick. “And the AMA — which is the group that supposedly stands up for the physicians in America — issues a strongly worded tweet that reaches 5,000 people,” Varshavski said. “Or they get the president of the AMA to sit in front of a webcam with terrible audio, the screen reflecting in the glasses with no lighting, to also make a response video reading a script from a screen.”
