Did This TikTok End His Medical Career?

Dr. Chang (00:04):
You are listening to Secret Services where we discuss the procedures nobody admits to, but everyone's curious about. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Chang. Okay. We're back with another episode of Secret Services. I'm Dr. Chang.

Jackie (00:19):
And I'm Jackie.

Dr. Chang (00:21):
Okay, Jackie, what are we going to talk about today?

Jackie (00:23):
I don't know if you saw this guy, Nick Baumel. I'm probably butchering his last name, but he was the fourth year med student at Mayo Clinic who was posting ... It seems like he's trying to be a content creator, making funny meme type things. We see a lot on TikTok and Instagram, but he definitely crossed the line with one of them where he was talking about putting in a Foley catheter, making fun of women's anatomy.

Dr. Chang (01:00):
Oh yeah, I saw a little bit of this.

Jackie (01:01):
Yes. So now his TikTok and his Instagram have since been deleted.

Dr. Chang (01:08):
So I saw some stitches where other people were reposting him. But his original accounts, as you said, were deleted. How big were they before?

Jackie (01:17):
Looks like on Instagram, 221,000 followers and almost 400,000 on TikTok.

Dr. Chang (01:24):
That's crazy.

Jackie (01:25):
It's a pretty solid following.

Dr. Chang (01:28):
Yeah. So he's in fourth year of medical school, from what I understand, right?

Jackie (01:31):
Yes.

Dr. Chang (01:31):
And right now we're in March. So he's got a few months left before he graduates medical school.

Jackie (01:39):
Horrible timing to post something like this.

Dr. Chang (01:42):
So I just heard that this guy had a big following and he was always posting funny medical things on his account. So he had sort of ... I couldn't go back to look, but he had a track record of being funny or trying to make jokes out of the things we do in medicine or medical school, right?

Jackie (02:03):
Right.

Dr. Chang (02:04):
So I couldn't really go back to compare, but when people would repost, he had a voiceover that he was mimicking and talking about female anatomy and things like that. And I think he's in a little bit of trouble.

Jackie (02:20):
Right. And so he's definitely getting canceled. There are so many videos being stitched of, especially GYN doctors, because he was talking about the female anatomy, everyone coming forward and just talking about how this is so inappropriate. It's not funny. It's creating a culture of patients not feeling safe.

Dr. Chang (02:41):
Oh yeah. But did you see that the Mayo Clinic ... The Mayo Clinic is one of the premier medical institutions in the country. It's like Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Harvard Brigham Women's Health, Sloan Kettering. It's a big name place in worldwide medicine. They put out a statement and a post, social media post apologizing and distancing themselves from this student of theirs. I was like, wow, the whole hospital system has to respond to this guy's TikTok.

Jackie (03:13):
Oh, and I'm sure they're cracking down on all social media use in the hospital, but it's popping up all over the place now. Everyone can have their own platform. You can post whatever you want, but it's like, where do you draw the line when you're working for a huge hospital system? I guess he's still just a med student.

Dr. Chang (03:37):
Right, right. Yeah. He's in medical school and I think that he's probably ... I don't know when match ... I think match day actually is coming up. It's usually around the 15th or something of mid-March, so it's coming up. They're going to decide where they're going, but the lists are in. So for those people who don't know, Match is when the fourth year medical students apply to various hospitals and specialties for the residency program where they will get clinical training. There'll be doctors, but in training and have to do anywhere from three to seven or eight years of training in the specialty that they choose to pursue. But it's not that you can just rank 10 places and then see which ones you get into and pick that one. Each hospital has to receive certain amount of residents and each wants to go to their top choice. So it's a match system where everybody puts their favorites into a computer and then they sort of match make you say, okay, this is the best optimized outcome. And so this guy is already in a match, I'm assuming for a specialty.

Jackie (04:44):
Yeah. And so do you think that this is something where they would rescind the match?

Dr. Chang (04:50):
I think he's in trouble. I think it's definitely possible that he could lose a spot. He could face academic discipline, not graduate. I don't know. There's a lot of possibilities and I think it's not a good position to be it. That doesn't sound good. You want to be celebrating when you're finishing medical school. It's a huge achievement. I'm sure he worked extremely hard, but I mean, this opens up a whole can of worms.

Jackie (05:15):
Yeah.

Dr. Chang (05:16):
I mean, I remember maybe before social media was really big, but as it was kind of getting going, thinking you got to be careful for the younger generation of what you put on the internet because the internet's forever. And this guy is a good example. He put this on, he got backlash, he deleted it, but his video was everywhere. It's probably more ... It's forever. It's crazy. And when you Google his name, you're going to hire him, it's going to come up.

Jackie (05:43):
Yeah. You Google him and it's just all Reddit, him just getting absolutely destroyed.

Dr. Chang (05:49):
Oh, no. It's going to haunt him for a while.

Jackie (05:54):
So do you think that in med school now they touch on social media?

Dr. Chang (06:00):
I don't know. I think social media is an important topic because everybody uses it. And I think people need to be trained on how to maintain professionalism while exposing another side of their life or personality. It's not as intuitive as you think. And then you could learn by just doing yourself and making these mistakes like this guy, but you make the wrong mistake. It could really have a lot of-

Jackie (06:30):
Huge mistake.

Dr. Chang (06:30):
A lot of influence over your career or your livelihood or let's say he was going to move his family to a certain area of the country for his specialty. It could have a lot of effects. So I think that the training should be there. People just have to be cautious. And here's the other thing, comedy is super dangerous.

Jackie (06:50):
That's what I was going to say. It's very different than just sharing results or, I don't know, educating people. But when you try to be funny, people can take things the wrong way very quickly.

Dr. Chang (07:05):
There's a number of people in doctors and social media, plastic surgeons who are sarcastic, snarky, and I might find them funny or may find them offensive, other people might find them the opposite. I mean, I could watch a standup comedian routine on Netflix and be laughing the whole time. And my wife could walk by and say, That is a horrible joke. I can't watch this with you and storm out. And we live in the same house. I have relatively similar values.

Jackie (07:37):
Yeah, that's so true.

Dr. Chang (07:39):
And-

Jackie (07:40):
You don't know how it's going to land.

Dr. Chang (07:42):
Yeah.

Jackie (07:43):
So I think, yeah, any posts where you're making fun of anyone's anatomy, I think.

Dr. Chang (07:50):
That's a great point. So there's this big TikTok doctor influencer named Will Flannery. His name is Dr. Glaucoma Flecken.

Jackie (07:58):
Oh, yes, yes.

Dr. Chang (07:59):
He does-

Jackie (08:00):
I do love him.

Dr. Chang (08:01):
He is hilarious. He's extremely smart. He was a comedian, did stand up comedy as a side gig, and he's gone through a lot as a physician, as well as a patient. He has an incredible journey. He came as a speaker to our med staff office.

Jackie (08:17):
I was gonna say you met him pretty recently, right?

Dr. Chang (08:18):
Yeah, yeah. I would've posted a picture, but he's twice as tall as I am and it made me feel like a baby. But anyway, but he is a great guy and he said a couple things. He said he never punches down. So I think what he meant by that was he's never going to make a character of the staff that helps him in the hospital, the ancillary staff, the texts, the radiology, ultrasound texts, or the nursing staff or the PA staff or things like that. He's never going to make fun of patients or family members of patients or things that do have some quirky things or situations that could be amusing, but he only keeps it at the same level or above hospital administration, insurance companies, peers and different specialties. And it was really interesting why he said that. And I think it's a good ... He wants to make sure that he still keeps the message of helping people and the importance of having a certain degree of respect. And so I think that it was a great talk. I mean, he's a great guy and very, very entertaining social media personality, but also very smart.

Jackie (09:28):
Yeah. And I mean, I follow a ton of those meme accounts in healthcare and healthcare is its own demon itself. And so we find humor as ways to cope with everything you face every day. But yeah, I think you just have to be really smart about what you're poking fun at. And you don't want your patients to feel like, Well, how could I ever open up to this guy if he's just going to go on social media and make fun of someone like me?

Dr. Chang (09:58):
Right, right. Yeah. I think that there is a lot of education and experience with that. And it's dangerous because you really want to get the next laugh, the next post to have more engagement, the next post to go viral or have more likes. And that desire and that sort of wanting more phenomenon kind of can get people into trouble and they push the edge a little bit, particularly in comedy or things that could border on that professionalism side. So I think that the younger people really that are coming out and they've had so much exposure to social media kind of need to kind of think about how honest they are going to be and how far are they going to go from being structured or disciplined about what they're putting on their profile.

Jackie (10:48):
Well, also, I mean, he's obviously younger and it is funny because I feel like growing up, you always, like you said, the internet's forever, don't post everything on the internet. But then now we're kind of in this day and age where everyone's making money posting on the internet nonstop. So I feel like these younger doctors probably feel a little invincible.

Dr. Chang (11:09):
People are crazy. I mean, people send naked pictures of themselves to other people and I'm like, that sounds like an insane idea. You're going to give somebody else digital. I mean, right now with II, they could probably make it up, but to actually send somebody else a naked picture of yourself or exposed, a compromising picture doesn't have to be naked, just compromising picture of yourself, embarrassing picture of yourself that now somebody else has control over that they could put anywhere they want. I mean, it's crazy.

Jackie (11:41):
I know. Well, also Paloma, our old medical assistant, she's in school now.

Dr. Chang (11:49):
Shout out, Paloma.

Jackie (11:49):
Shout out Paloma, we miss you. But she was sending Dr. Chang and I those TikToks about the residents that they're welcoming the residents and it's like Lisa Frank backgrounds with the dog-

Dr. Chang (12:02):
Oh, there's a name for that? I didn't know what that is.

Jackie (12:04):
Well, Lisa Frank was like, she made folders and stuff when I was a kid, but it's similar vibe, like the dolphins-

Dr. Chang (12:12):
Oh, I was going to say Care Bears or something like that. Strawberry Shortcake, but okay, yeah, probably too old for you.

Jackie (12:20):
Like medical institutions are announcing their new class of residents. So it is kind of like, where do you draw the line between we're trying to be funny or are you like, Well, I wouldn't want these people taking care of me with their little dolphin background. It's a little weird. It's not professional enough.

Dr. Chang (12:39):
It does make it a little more casual, less formal. I don't think anybody cares if your chief resident profile is featured on this kind of thing, because being a chief resident, while it is an achievement, it's not going to really be featured in your practice or your job. So it's kind of, I guess, kind of fun or funny, but at the same time, it's a little embarrassing. I mean, it's like your mom posting a picture of you and I don't know, like one of those things at the zoo where there's a tiger and the eyes are cut out and you're poking your eyes through there or something. It's a little silly.

Jackie (13:13):
I'm going to make a dolphin one with you.

Dr. Chang (13:15):
Okay. Oh God, stay tuned for that. Anyway, I think the social media trends are influencing everything in medicine. Plastic surgery is one of the earliest specialties to really get involved with social media. We've had doctors who have been posting their results for a long time, getting into every social media platform, Snapchat, TikTok, BeReal. Yeah.

Jackie (13:45):
Dr. Miami on Snapchat.

Dr. Chang (13:47):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and people would go from posting live surgery where they would stream from, dancing in the operating room. I saw a number of doctors who got in trouble a few years ago for dancing while dancing, stopping the surgery to do their TikTok dancing or whatever, where they could film the patient, the background, people who would streamlive surgery. I mean, there was one doctor who was going up to a court date. Remember the guy who was in the court date and he live Zoomed?

Jackie (14:19):
Yes, he was operating.

Dr. Chang (14:20):
The judge while he'sin the operating room.

Jackie (14:22):
It was like a traffic ticket. It was like something dumb.

Dr. Chang (14:26):
It's just-

Jackie (14:27):
A very minor thing that he was going to court for.

Dr. Chang (14:30):
It's stupid hubris, honestly. Just trying to be like, "Well, I'm important, so you should give me the benefit of the doubt." I mean, to think that that would impress the judge is crazy.

Jackie (14:39):
Yeah.

Dr. Chang (14:40):
It's crazy.

Jackie (14:41):
I think, yeah, you just have to use discretion. And clearly that's what our friend Nick here was lacking.

Dr. Chang (14:50):
Well, what do you think should happen to Nick?

Jackie (14:55):
I think he should, I'm sure his residency would get rescinded. I don't know. I think he should kind of be blackballed. It's just such a dumb thing that I just feel like if you're going to be a doctor, you should just know better.

Dr. Chang (15:07):
Yeah. I think there definitely needs to be some consequence. Sorry, Nick, but professionalism and sort of judgment is a really important thing. And sometimes it's not that teachable. You can teach somebody who didn't get great board scores or you can work with somebody who needs to repeat a year in residency because they just don't have the competency to graduate. But when you're ethical, professional judgment, you can't tell what the line is, or you value the likes and the comedy laughs more than your own professionalism and respect for the especially. It's a little tough.

Jackie (15:55):
I think, yeah, that's a really good way to put it. That's something that you can't really teach. And it's a skill that you would hope that all of your healthcare professionals that you're in the care of would have.

Dr. Chang (16:07):
Yeah. But I mean, I know how hard this guy has worked. This guy, to first off, get into Mayo Medical School.

Jackie (16:13):
At the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Chang (16:14):
He's got to be really accomplished, extremely smart. And so I really hope he does well and figures out whether it's some sort of remediation path or whatever gets some sort of grace, hopefully. But it's tough. I think that it's a tough thing. It probably should have an apology. I think that's really the thing. You want to see somebody who can grow out of adversity.

Jackie (16:42):
Yeah, that's a good point.

Dr. Chang (16:44):
We need some forgiveness these days. We need to be able to forgive people.

Jackie (16:47):
Yeah. We need an apology video.

Dr. Chang (16:49):
But yeah, little apology. Yeah, exactly. If it's a funny apology.

Jackie (16:54):
Yeah, maybe he just says, Whatever, I'm going to pursue being a content creator now.

Dr. Chang (17:00):
I mean, you might make more money than being a doctor.

Jackie (17:03):
Maybe.

Dr. Chang (17:03):
What'd you say he was going to go into?

Jackie (17:05):
I think we had heard maybe rheumatology. I don't know if that's true, but ...

Dr. Chang (17:10):
They could probably use a sense of humor in rheumatology. I don't know how many rheumatology jokes.

Jackie (17:15):
Yeah. I don't think I know any rheumatologists, honestly.

Dr. Chang (17:19):
Yeah. Yeah. Everybody needs a good laugh, but particularly rheumatology. All right. Well, we'll get back to it and we got to go. A couple patients are waiting and we'll get back to you soon.

Jackie (17:31):
Great. Bye.

Dr. Chang (17:34):
Thanks for listening to Secret Services, the podcast where we see everything and say nothing except right here. I'm Dr. Christopher Chang, double board certified plastic surgeon located in Tysons, Virginia. Follow us on TikTok @CongressionalPsurgery or on Instagram @congressionalplasticsurgery. To send us a classified message or to hear more episodes, go to secretservicespodcast.com. Links to everything we talked about on today's show are available in the show notes. Oops, patient's here. We got to go.