How come no real doctors decide to make videos and share their knowledge with the world?

  • @spittingimage@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    The algorithm prioritises engagement over accuracy, to generate ad revenue. To youtube, a clip with a hundred comments saying it’s wrong is better than a clip that’s right.

    • nymnympseudonym
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      719 hours ago

      This

      Look at Dr John Campbell’s videos at the start of the Pandemic. Every one was a level headed review of scientific papers and evidence

      1.5 years later he was full on conspiracy theorist no doubt got some people killed

      I don’t think it was pure crass. I think his basic personality was warped by algos attention and money

    • can_you_change_your_username
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      515 hours ago

      Chubby emu is still making videos. I’m not familiar with medlife crisis but I’ll look them up. I can also recommend DrMike and mamma doctor Jones.

  • @roofuskit@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    If you can make money as a doctor you’d have to be an idiot to try and make money as a content creator.

    Unless a doctor is being paid by a government or NGO, it makes zero sense for them to spend their time making educational content on the Internet. It’s actually pretty easy for doctors to donate their time actually helping people directly if they want. Lots of doctors do that already.

    • @TheV2@programming.dev
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      4 hours ago

      I’m not sure why it would make zero sense for a doctor to spend their time making educational content on the internet. Helping people directly may be indeed more important and urgent, but contributing to a more positive impact of free educational content on health and medicine is just as reasonable, especially if they are good at that.

      • @roofuskit@lemmy.world
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        9 minutes ago

        They would have to spend so much time building a brand and making a name for themselves they would have no time to be a real doctor. Otherwise they are making videos and just throwing them into the ether. That’s why doctors lend their experto governments and NGOs because those already have a reputation and communication channels.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮
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      15 hours ago

      If you can make money as a doctor you’d have to be an idiot to try and make money as a content creator

      I think the problem here for some of them is they can’t make money as a doctor because they are idiot doctors. Like, imagine having a doctor that graduated with the lowest possible passing score.

      Or perhaps they have doctorates in one field but make videos pretending to be medical doctors. Or are just straight up shitbirds like Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil.

    • @bluesocks@lemmings.worldOP
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      -216 hours ago

      it makes zero sense for them to spend their free time making educational content on the Internet.

      I actually disagree, and money shouldn’t be the main motivator for sharing knowledge.

        • @bluesocks@lemmings.worldOP
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          -816 hours ago

          The rest of your comment doesn’t address or invalidate the sharing of knowledge.

          I’m going to block you now, though. You’re clearly too stupid to keep up.

          Keep spending money 👍

  • ✺roguetrick✺
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    520 hours ago

    You think actual reasonable advice will get enough views to pay for the effort in doing it?

    • z3rOR0ne
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      15 hours ago

      Yes

      Dr. Mike is a currently practicing Family Physician that obviously makes good money on YouTube with 14M subs, and just gives pretty standard medical advice while covering interesting topics in his field and dispelling common medical myths.

      The worst thing I can say about Dr. Mike is that he is very much an Old School Democrat and procapitalist/anticommunist, as evidenced by his podcast guests and his statements about his upbringing in Russia. But those are his political views. As far as I can tell his success on YouTube has to do with his looks, personality, and production quality alongside sound medical advice and interesting insights into the medical field.

      I’m pretty sure at this point he has a whole team managing his channel, so he still has time to be a full time doctor. It’s extremely rare for a legitimate currently practicing doctor to be able to be a youtuber full time, but it does happen.

      EDIT: wording/clarification

  • I’d say a combination of lack of incentive (doctors make good money) and potential for harm. A good doctor making a well thought out video still can’t diagnose a person, and if someone were to misdiagnose themselves based on what a doctor said on youtube, then suffer significant harm because of what the video told her, the doctor could easily be legally liable.

    • @tal@lemmy.today
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      19 hours ago

      Sounds plausible.

      On a related note, I still can’t figure out why there is so much insane dietary stuff on the Internet.

      Some of it is probably that it isn’t just the Internet. The 1800s had some pretty bonkers stuff in the US. The Internet just makes it visible to me. But there’s still an insane amount of people promoting things on incredibly thin evidence that seem to get remarkable uptake.

      There are also some other medicine-adjacent fields, like people talking about the health impacts of electromagnetic radiation, that have a remarkable amount of crazy stuff online.

  • @zeppo@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    There are a few, particularly in the psych field, who make good videos sharing reliable information. I think overall, good doctors have better things to do than make videos. And unless it’s something like heart health or exercise that very general and applicable to abroad audience,it’s unlikely a video will get enough views to make them much money. I wonder whether there also might be legal questions. So what’s the point?

  • @tal@lemmy.today
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    119 hours ago

    If you’re trying to search for less-snake-oily health stuff, I’ve added site:gov in the past as a rough filter to search queries, though today, with RFK Jr running around, I’m not sure that that helps.