Slashdot Mirror
The Latest Crop of Instagram Influencers? Medical Students. (slate.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Celebrity physicians often catapult to fame via their mastery of traditional media, like television or radio or books or magazines, and we're used to seeing medical advice and expertise there. What you may have yet to encounter, or haven't fully noticed yet, is the growing group of current medical students who are perhaps on track to achieve even greater fame, through their prodigious and aggressive use of social media, particularly Instagram. Even before receiving their medical degrees, these future doctors are hard at work growing their audiences (many have well into the thousands of followers), arguably in ways even more savvy than the physicians on social media today.
I first learned of the medical student Instagram influencer community a few months ago, when a friend shared links to a few of these accounts with me, asking if this is what medical school was really like. Curated and meticulously organized, these accounts posted long reflections after anatomy lab sessions, video stories of students huddled around a defibrillator during a CPR training session, pictures of neat study spaces featuring board-prep textbooks next to cups of artisan coffee, and 5 a.m. selfies taken in the surgery locker-room before assisting with a C-section. Initially, I cringed. Sure, they looked vaguely familiar -- they were (literally) rose-tinted, glamorized snapshots of relatable moments dispersed over the past few years of my life. But interspersed, and even integrated, into those relatable moments were advertisements and discount codes for study materials and scrub clothing brands. Something about that, in particular, felt impulsively antithetical to my (perhaps wide-eyed) interpretation of medicine's ideals, of service to others over self-promotion.
Sufficiently intrigued, I fell into a digital rabbit hole that surfaced dozens of fellow med students moonlighting as social media influencers, and the partnerships grew ever more questionable. Some accounts featured sponsored posts advertising watches and clothes from Lululemon; another linked back to a personal blog that included a page that allowed followers to "shop my Instagram." A popular fitness-oriented account, hosted by an aspiring M.D., promoted protein powder and pre-workout supplements. A future dermatologist showcased skin care products. Another future M.D.'s account highlights the mattresses, custom maps, furniture rental services, and food brand that, according to the posts, help her seamlessly live the life of a third-year med student.
I first learned of the medical student Instagram influencer community a few months ago, when a friend shared links to a few of these accounts with me, asking if this is what medical school was really like. Curated and meticulously organized, these accounts posted long reflections after anatomy lab sessions, video stories of students huddled around a defibrillator during a CPR training session, pictures of neat study spaces featuring board-prep textbooks next to cups of artisan coffee, and 5 a.m. selfies taken in the surgery locker-room before assisting with a C-section. Initially, I cringed. Sure, they looked vaguely familiar -- they were (literally) rose-tinted, glamorized snapshots of relatable moments dispersed over the past few years of my life. But interspersed, and even integrated, into those relatable moments were advertisements and discount codes for study materials and scrub clothing brands. Something about that, in particular, felt impulsively antithetical to my (perhaps wide-eyed) interpretation of medicine's ideals, of service to others over self-promotion.
Sufficiently intrigued, I fell into a digital rabbit hole that surfaced dozens of fellow med students moonlighting as social media influencers, and the partnerships grew ever more questionable. Some accounts featured sponsored posts advertising watches and clothes from Lululemon; another linked back to a personal blog that included a page that allowed followers to "shop my Instagram." A popular fitness-oriented account, hosted by an aspiring M.D., promoted protein powder and pre-workout supplements. A future dermatologist showcased skin care products. Another future M.D.'s account highlights the mattresses, custom maps, furniture rental services, and food brand that, according to the posts, help her seamlessly live the life of a third-year med student.
This seems like a good career for serial-BS-assertionist Bill and his vast, unbelievable (in fact truly) expertise-TM in all things. He could be a doctor of medicine, just ask him, he'll make something up with a wiki link in it.
If the 4-5 idiots on Slashdot were tens of thousands of people each, he could actually make a living just BS-ing like this.
That is all.
You have Dr. Jon & Dr. Chris.
People pay a lot to get their medical profession from a great university.
Selection on merit.
Years of study and professional standing the in community.
Show their university as the best now keeps value in their resume for decades.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
If you were going to owe $200k (or more) before your first job, what would you do? If they have room on their plate for this, and still have ability to earn, more power to them!
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I hole-hardedly agree, but allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn't take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It's clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother's mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it's a peach of cake.
Or influenZers?
Ezekiel 23:20
They should focus on their studies. Doctors (at least in the US) are pretty inept.
They don't even have their medical license yet, and they should lose them before they even get them. THis is beyond shady shit.
Oh, so they are the new generation of Dr Oz, who promotes non proven and pseudo-scientific products?
Getting on that train early I guess ...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
In my experience the med school students that mainly want to be doctors for high pay are really the worst types. If I was in HR I would deliberately not hire these influencers.
A name they have to hope you don't look too closely at.
Go spend time being a better doctor.
And who the fuck wastes time watching other people's lives. Go live your own internet rats.
I know a chick who makes a living as a influencer. I keep telling her that Google can pull the rug out from under that any time they feel like it, but she doesn't seem to care.
Seems to be doing okay, but it could be shut off tomorrow and she'd have no say in that. I think it's smart to not depend on the income you get from it, but use it only to augment.
Where is this 'middle of nowhere' you refer to? _____________________________________ https://8ballpool.onl/ https://googlehangouts.ooo/ https://omegle.onl/
And while they're doing all that you know what they're not doing? Studying.
-- An ex medical student, now physician.
I put all my chips in on becoming a /. influencer.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
If you were going to owe $200k (or more) before your first job, what would you do?
For fucks sake, I'm tired of the complaining about the cost of education. What is the value of the education?
Boo hoo. I have half a million in debt and I haven't completed my residency yet. Boo hoo.
Just completely ignore the fact that the majority of those doctors will have that debt paid off in less than 10 years and will enjoy that growing income level for the next 10, 20, 30 years. Why do you think many of them become doctors in the first place. They do it for the money. They'll retire, possibly early, with millions of dollars.
They'll make (tens of) millions of dollars off that highly prudent half a million dollar investment.
I have no sympathy or patience for those complaining about the cost of higher education. They're either going to have highly valuable degrees(doctors, engineers), or they are just too stupid for me to care that they thought $200k on gender studies was anything but monumentally stupid.
My new favorite chris story is the one where we're supposed to believe some guy at the FBI read the mandatory government warning on his windows workstation
Warning this is a monitored US GOVERNMENT system and we will sodomize you for....., clicked ok. Typed his name into the login screen.
Then even though all government systems all have like 21 layers of endpoint protection and whatever SSL proxy deep packet inspection horseshit norton managed to scam them with... he located and downloaded violent child pornography. He got away with it for awhile too.
Thankfully our hero CDR was pretending to work by watching the files copy and recognized it as cp by file name.
Why is cp so central in every story to emerge from your imagination?
Hahhaah oh god your first world problems.
I endured broken bones in the desert and summer semester homelessness to get my degree.
You need to go on a camping trip or do some time in the reserves because you're not going to be served well in life by that lack of toughness.
Do quantitative measures exist for labeling someone an influencer? Oprah's book club certainly moves books, other daytime hosts can move a lot of product with their endorsement, but the so called "influencers" are more like commissioned sales people. After all, they are just using the "social" media to find paying customers and collecting a commission. I'm not convinced that the term "influencer" is merited here. They're not really changing someone's mind about any particular topic the way Oprah and, alas, Hannity can. They are selling stuff, moving product, liquidating inventory, shilling junk, etc. They are social media salespeople. There is no distinction between them and people on QVC and Home Shopping Channels. Let's call them what they are. Influencer my a__.
"...who search the reason of things
Are those who bring the most sorrow on themselves." --Euripides, The Medea