Physician Content Creators Weigh In on TikTok’s Uncertain Future

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Other apps don’t have the same reach, which is helpful in dispelling misinformation, they say

by
Rachael Robertson, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today
January 21, 2025

Promises of a TikTok ban have loomed over the popular video app for months, and a brief pause in operations this weekend gave millions a taste of what a full ban would entail.

Several popular physician content creators who post videos on multiple social media sites, including TikTok, told MedPage Today why they’re staunchly opposed to a TikTok ban, noting that it would result in the loss of an outlet for sharing information and dispelling rampant misinformation.

William Flanary, MD, an ophthalmologist better known for his popular comedic sketch videos as his alter ego “Dr. Glaucomflecken,” has 2.4 million followers on TikTok alone.

“Social media and TikTok in particular — that’s where people are, that’s where the next generation is,” Flanary said. “So when you hear about the uproar [and] the political strife that this [ban] is going to cause … it should inform all physicians just how important social media is for just the general knowledge that people gain.”

Betsy Grunch, MD, a neurosurgeon in Gainesville, Georgia, has amassed a following of 2.3 million people as “ladyspinedoc” on TikTok, sharing medical information and insights into her daily life. She said that while she uses her TikTok platform for education, she also uses it to “inspire the next generation of healthcare workers and kind of show those younger generations what we do.”

Zachary Rubin, MD, a pediatric allergist who practices near Chicago and has 1.4 million followers on TikTok, said that posting on the app has opened many doors professionally, even if it was never his plan to go viral on social media. He cautioned that physician voices are necessary to buoy good information about healthcare topics.

“If TikTok goes away, there’s probably going to be a temporary vacuum where misinformation is going to become even more rampant on these platforms … especially with the announcement that Meta is changing their content moderation policies to mirror that of X, formerly known as Twitter, which I think is a bad idea,” he said.

Part of the reason why posting on the app allows doctors to connect more broadly with young people — including those who don’t follow them — is TikTok’s powerful algorithm that determines what videos users see. This makes TikTok stand out from other social media apps and makes it an effective launching point for building a following on other platforms.

“The way the TikTok algorithm works is it allows your message to get out to a wider audience more quickly than other platforms are able to do,” Flanary explained, adding that this makes TikTok “a popular platform for dissemination of ideas, which makes it a threat to very powerful people.”

A TikTok ban would be a “big assault on freedom of speech” and an “egregious example of censorship,” he added.

TikTok stopped working for U.S. users on Saturday night, though the pause was short lived, with the app coming back online just over 12 hours later.

Rubin said that this weekend’s pause “was unnecessary” given how short it was and that “many people are speculating that it was a political move.” Both the message alerting users of the pause and the notice that the app was back online cited President Donald Trump’s recent remarks that he would “most likely” give the app a 90-day extension to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

In preparation for a TikTok ban, many Americans have flocked to other social media apps, including a significant surge to the Chinese app Xiaohongshu (also called RedNote), which has similar features to TikTok.

Rubin and Grunch both joined Xiaohongshu as part of this wave, but Flanary said he currently doesn’t have plans to join. Unlike some content creators and small businesses whose income and livelihood are tied to the platform, making medical content is a side gig for most physician creators. Flanary said he views content creation as secondary to his clinical practice.

“Most physicians who are content creators … whether it’s part time or even full time, still practice medicine, which I think is important for a medical content creator,” he said. “If you’re going to be talking about medicine and taking care of patients, I think you have to maintain a connection to medical practice.”

But like other content creators, Rubin noted that physicians are “preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.” He already has a diversified social media presence, but he pointed out that short-form content is more attainable for physicians to work into their busy schedules. Platforms that are geared towards long-form content, like YouTube, require a different type of content and time commitment.

Still, Grunch said losing TikTok would be a true loss. “I’ve spent 3 years of my life really building this community of people that enjoy what I do, and I enjoy interacting with them … you become a virtual family,” she said.

Flanary noted that while not all physicians need to be content creators, the profession needs “to understand the importance of it and not look down on content creation as a way to advocate, as a way to correct misinformation, and to just get the right medical information into young people’s brains.”