‘We need to adapt’: Rheumatologist on TikTok battles misinformation for 78K followers
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In a specialty like rheumatology, patient education can be an important factor in disease management, whether it’s combatting misinformation, improving treatment compliance or helping patients better advocate for themselves.
For Micah Yu, MD, a rheumatologist at the Dr. Lifestyle Clinic in Newport Beach, California, improving this kind of patient education and outreach has become a personal mission. However, rather than limiting himself to just a handful of patients, he is bringing his message to nearly 80,000 people on TikTok.
And he believes other rheumatologists should do the same.
Since 2018, Yu, or @myautoimmunemd as he is known on various social media platforms, has cultivated an online following by educating people on the topic of rheumatic diseases. He currently has more than 78,000 followers on TikTok, where he shares short, fun videos explaining specific rheumatic disease states and answering questions from patients and the general public alike.
Healio sat down with Yu to discuss social media, his mission and what technology means for the future of medicine.
Healio: When did you get the idea to begin using social media as a platform for rheumatology patient education?
Yu: I started using social media — Instagram — publicly in about 2018, at the beginning of my fellowship. I was very interested in lifestyle medicine and how that helped me with my own autoimmune disease and arthritis. From there, I basically have a mission and message to send to the world about rheumatology, autoimmune disease and using integrative medicine along with traditional medicine to help patients with their own disease. I made my way over to TikTok about a year and a half ago just to spread the word and reach a bigger audience.
Healio: What made you decide to branch out from Instagram?
Yu: TikTok was, I think, a newer thing and I wanted to see what it was all about. I thought it was funny and it was a way for me to show my personality a little more and reach a different population. The TikTok users are younger than Instagram users — many are in their teens and 20s. Now there are older people on there, but before it was mainly for younger folks, so it was a way for me to branch out also show my personality.
Healio: People will sometimes respond to your videos asking about a specific disease state, and you will respond to that question with another video. How do these platforms allow you to better connect to your patients?
Yu: Oftentimes, due to the state of our health care system, patients don’t get the time to ask questions to their doctors as much as they would like. Maybe they have a 15-, 20-minute visit and they are covering meds, diagnoses, all in that one visit, and there just isn’t time to ask all these questions. When they do have questions, it’s sometimes after the visit and they can’t reach the doctors.
For me, it’s a way to educate the public and have some impact on public health. Any generalized questions I try to answer for these followers, because often they can’t find the answer on the internet, or they get misinformation. It is also a way for me to educate my followers about lifestyle and integrative medicines.
Healio: Is combating misinformation surrounding rheumatic diseases one of the reasons you continue to do this?
Yu: Yeah, even for doctors not in rheumatology, this field can be pretty confusing. It was a way for me to make things clearer for my followers and other health care professionals out there.
Healio: How do you feel about telemedicine being used for rheumatology appointments?
Yu: I think it is the future. Typically, in rheumatology, we are pretty hands-on — you feel the joints and try to look for swelling — but I think we have entered a new age of medicine. I have a lot of telemedicine patients. I have patients throughout the U.S. who are looking for a second opinion or who want me because I have a unique approach to rheumatology. I do both integrative and traditional rheumatology, so I understand both fields.
Sometimes patients don’t have access to a rheumatologist. I have patients in the Midwest who might wait 6 months to see a rheumatologist and they need someone sooner. It’s a way to get quicker access to the doctors that they want to see sooner.
Healio: How would you describe the relationship between telemedicine, social media and patient education?
Yu: They are all related. Social media has been a way for me to let people know that a doctor like myself exists. You get a glimpse into what the doctor and their family are like. For me, being on social media, it is a way for my followers to get a glimpse into my own life, to understand my personality, to see whether they would like for me to be their doctor.
Oftentimes, you get a doctor now, you don’t know what their personality is like. Social media is a way for me to reach a bigger audience and it is another way for me to get patients as well. Sometimes I educate them, and that is all they want from me, and that is totally fine. Not every follower on social media is going to be my patient, and I am OK with that.
My goal is to educate people as much as I can. On TikTok or Instagram, when patients see you on there, they know you, and sometimes it takes a year or two before they make that first appointment, but it is usually a telemedicine appointment because they know you already, so it is very normal for them to see you as a patient.
Healio: What kind of reception have your received on social media?
Yu: My content has been pretty well received. My followers are generally pretty appreciative of the information I give them. I would say the reception changed during the pandemic because COVID-19 was all over, so I had to talk about COVID to some extent. COVID was, especially with the vaccine and everything, so polarized. Everyone had a different, very strong opinion about COVID and the vaccine.
In that regard, I received a lot of both love and hate. That is generally how it is on social media. You have to have thick skin because people can attack you very easily, whereas in person, they probably wouldn’t attack you for your opinion. It can be hard, but as long as you stick to your message and you have a mission, I think you can get through that criticism.
Healio: How would you summarize the value that social media platforms hold for patient education?
Yu: I think it is very important and valuable. There is so much misinformation out there that, nowadays, you don’t have to have an MD or DO to express a health or medical opinion. People who have no degrees are expressing opinions that are not backed by any science on social media, and that can be scary. There are a lot of people out there who will listen to that. It is important for doctors in general, even not in rheumatology, to have some sort of social media presence to let patients know what the guidelines are, or tell followers what is FDA-approved and what we do in rheumatology.
Particularly in rheumatology, many people have not even heard the word “rheumatology” before, so it is another way to connect with people to let them know what rheumatology is and what we treat. People get a better understanding, because sometimes a primary care doctor might not be educated in rheumatology. Rheum is one of the areas where doctors receive the least training if it is not their specialty. Going through internal medicine myself, it was not something that was heavily emphasized in medical school.
Healio: Do these platforms benefit patients who need to advocate more for themselves?
Yu: Definitely, yes. There are pros and cons though. Some of these patients are not going to listen to the correct message — they are going to listen to someone who has no education in this space. That’s why we need rheumatologists and other doctors who do have the degree to go on there and get some balance on these platforms.
Healio: What would you say to rheumatologists who might argue that platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter aren’t appropriate for patient outreach and education?
Yu: I would say that it is the modern times, it is the future. The way we used to do things is not the way of the future. A lot of people are on social media now, especially the younger generation. If you’re not engaging on these platforms, really, you’re not reaching the audience. People have different ways of learning. Yeah, TikTok can be kind of goofy, but that is how people stay engaged and learn. If you’re not on these social media platforms, you’re going to have people with no degrees, or the wrong degrees, educating these patients. Eventually we are going to lose these patients.
Healio: Why is this type of platform good for patient education?
Yu: It is a creative way of reaching people. If you’re not on social media as a doctor, I bet your children are, your spouse is, your brothers and sisters are. Unfortunately, the way we used to do things will not be the way of the future. Technology is changing and we need to adapt to it.
Healio: Has your use of these platforms changed the way you interact with your own patients?
Yu: Yes, because I educate my followers all the time with posts. So sometimes a patient will ask me a question, and I will refer them to a recent post I made because it answers the question in a more thorough way than I might have time for during a visit. I would say a good 25% of my patients are from social media, and that is how they learn from me. It’s been a very valuable platform. Patients from across the country and world find me because I am the exact kind of doctor they are looking for. If I am not on social media, they would never know that I exist.
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