There are those who do medicine in the hospital. And those who also want to tell it, explaining clinical cases on Tiktok or by tutorial with the white coat on Instagram. In the middle there is a very thin line that separates scientific dissemination from spectacularization. Or worse: from the violation of professional ethics and the relationship of trust with patients. It is a very dangerous ridge, what many doctors today find themselves traveling, often without the right tools and above all without the skills to be able to extricate themselves in the complex world of new communication.
The medical affair on social networks suddenly explodes, as often happens in our country, on a day in early July: When Solange Fugger (very famous on Tiktok as “Minerva Salute”, more than 400 thousand followers, millions of likes and a face that pierces the screen while explaining the many clinical cases that is facing in the ward) becomes at 36 years of age the youngest primary in Italy, taking the guide of the emergency room of the Aurelia Hospital in Rome: private structure, but affiliated with the National Health Service. It is a moment and the universe of the white cans is divided: for some it is a virtuous model of communication, for others a loose threatening. Accusations rain: from that of having made a career only thanks to the social networks (the primary of private PS must not win a competition like those who work in the public) to that of subtracting time from the department, up to accusations of violation of the privacy of patients and large debates on the opportunity or not that the doctors tell their cases on Tiktok.
The same fleeing, in numerous interviews, shows that he perceives a vague hint of “risk” in what he does, and claims not to gladly reveal where he works for fear that then “the followers come to look for me in the ward”.
It is Pandora’s pot: to worry colleagues, more than popularity not only than “Minerva Salute” but in general of the many doctors-influencersIt is other, that is, the proliferation on the social content platforms, even very delicate, which risk doing more badly than well. “We are aware of the importance of knowing how to communicate our world effectively,” explains Fabio De Iaco, Past-Preesident of Simeu (Italian emergency emergency society) to Panorama. «But that is that restless is the simplification of messages. Especially when you tell serious clinical cases with the style of viral platforms. I am not strictly referring to the fleeting case, I am analyzing the phenomenon of a whole series of popularized health and hospital life: if you show a cardiac arrest as if it were a TV series scene you are playing with the collective imagination. And you risk doing damage, even if you are animated by the best intentions. Medicine is not a show: it is a technical and human act, which requires a sense of measure ».
The border is therefore not among those who communicate and who does not, but between those who simplify to try to speak to everyone, and who trivializes Or, worse still, he gives in to spectacularization, in search of emotion and self -defending. “Popular language can certainly bring the medical universe closer to users of our hospitals,” says De Iaco. «But it must remain faithful to complexity. When chasing the algorithm, you end up cutting the shades and transform the pain into content. We cannot afford it: the influencers of health are welcome, but they do things well and do not give wrong messages to the population. Because this becomes dangerous, and then having to face the attacks of those who think that in the emergency room it is all simple as it seems on video, there are us, in flesh and blood. We try to snatch people from death: but unfortunately there is not always the happy ending as on Tiktok ».
The order of the doctors of Milan was also brought to discover the Pandora’s vase, which has decided to intervene not so much on doctors-influencers but even on the personal use of social channels, recommending its members not to “grant friendship” to their patients. View a little too retrograde? “I don’t think: the problem is that accepting a patient among friends on Facebook can create wrong expectations,” explains the president of the Milanese order, Roberto Carlo Rossi. «The patient may think that the doctor is truly a friend, always available, every message, at every hour. This is not the case: the doctor must remain a technician, to guarantee everyone. Because empathy is a clinical tool, not a personal confidence: the doctor enters the patient’s world for a limited time, he tries to understand their sufferings to better calibrate diagnosis and therapies. But he must then “close the application”, to use a computer metaphor, return to focus on another patient, another problem. The error was born when this empathy is projected into the social space, where whatever is permanent, visible and out of context ».
It would seem all legitimate and sensible, if it were not that the wind cannot be stopped (of social networks) with your hands: it is necessary to learn to govern it. Given that the National Federation of Medical Orders (FNOMCE) has long since spread a vademecum on what to do or not to do on the new media (spoiler: they recommend creating separate profiles, one personal and a professional one) therefore, how to proceed? “Preparation and judgment are needed: in general, for anyone who is on social media, let alone for doctors”, says Massimiliano Panarari, professor of sociology of communication of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. “Given that being on social media should be the last of the concerns for those who work in the lane, I do not deny that the good dissemination – made precisely where the great majority of the population intercepts – can have a potentially useful function. If the primary of the analog era was a distant, almost hieratic figure, today an intelligent use of the platforms can humanize the medical-patient relationship. The greatest risk, however, is the confusion of roles: social networks tend to crush everything on a horizontal plane, where “one is worth one”. But between doctor and patient there is an asymmetrical relationship, and it is right that it remains such. Not for hierarchy, but for mutual protection ».
The new times of doctors-influencers would therefore seem a great example of “all wrong, all to be redone”, but in the reality of social networks (beyond the obvious oxymoron) the story is not exactly that simple. Will it be not that in these complicated post-covid years, marked by the irre-termibility of many basic doctors and the proliferation of dangerous fake news, the friends of the doctors who “explain things” on our smartphone could really make the difference and help us reconstruct a minimum of confidence pact between doctors and patients?
A virtuous example is represented by some pediatricians, who have decided to fight in the agone of social media to help mothers and dad struggling with the problems of the children. From the “Hypediatrici” account on Tiktok to Giorgio Cuffaro’s page on Facebook, these disseminates team up against dangerous phenomena such as self-medication, anti-Vaccinism or excessive use of antibiotics and attract hundreds of thousands of followers, who participate and comment. Almost always with correctness. «We need a lot of time and a lot of patience, but the results come. Entering the places where fake news is born can be an effective strategy, “underlines Cuffaro. «And for this, with other colleagues, we are building informal networks, sharing content, creating cohesion. When another pediatrician shares my post, in the end his audience trusts me too. Thus a positive chain is created ».
A silent but solid network. Which does not point to the numbers, but to the quality of information. “The public,” concludes De Iaco, “today he listens to social medicals more. And if we want to return to trust us, maybe we must all learn to speak his language too. But without ever betraying ours ». And if the patient then also becomes a friend, well, he may not even be only bad: after all, beyond the white coat, beyond the screen, there is always a person.
