Dr. Catfish, I Presume

There’s something eerie going on on social media these days.  Perhaps not in the realms of true atrocity, like rampant child exploitation¹ or the cringefest that is special interest “fact-checking,²” but something still that begs questioning: The rise of the influencer doctor. 

If you are on social media, particularly the big ones (Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, TikTok, or Twitter,) chances are you have seen a host of very popular doctors there.  Maybe you even follow some of them.  But is that doctor you see each new day with your morning coffee really someone to take medical advice from?

There are plenty of real, practicing doctors who have also written books, pioneered medical innovations, or otherwise made themselves well-known on social media.  We were able to easily find a handful of state licenses, doctor reviews, and office addresses.

However, in our research, we also found that not all social media doctors are created equal.  Some are more on the influencer side.  A few are even actors with agents.  Some appear to have practiced medicine for a minute, but perhaps changed paths early on.  Some of these influencer doctors even have several mainstream media interviews and are being propped up as authorities on topics like Covid-19, vaccinations, and plant-based diets. Surprise, surprise.

Regardless of a license to practice, what do influencer doctor accounts look like?  First and foremost, they’re beautiful people.  Their Instagram pages look like a portrait photographer’s portfolio.  They have hundreds of thousands, even millions, of avid followers who believe they are experts.  Some of them promote various medical products through paid partnerships.  Others have their own lifestyle websites. Many of them post multiple times per day, which begs the question, how do they find time to do all this AND practice medicine? All of this should raise some red flags.

One of the first doctors that caught our attention for the above reasons was Dr. Mauricio Gonzalez-Arias, M.D. His bio says that he is a board certified internal medicine physician and emergency medicine resident at the New York Metropolitan Hospital and New York Medical College, and he posts around twice a day on Instagram.

His website teaches his followers “how to thrive on a plant-based diet through science.” He is the founder of the Latin American Veggie Power Summit, which offers group coaching, online courses, and articles.

On July 6th, he was featured in a CNN Español interview encouraging parents to vaccinate their children for Covid-19, insuring that risks such as heart inflammation are quite rare and that no children have died from the jab,³ which is actually not true.⁴

He has 545,000 followers on Instagram alone, where he posts medical advice alongside photos and videos of himself in a lab coat. His most recent post as of August 4th is a lachrymose CNN story about a man who died of Covid-19 wishing he had gotten vaccinated, with a caption that implores everyone to get their shot. He’s also been featured on a podcast at Veganfitness.com.⁵

Mauricio Gonzalez-Arias is licensed to practice medicine in the state of New York. In that regard he checks out, and we found this through a quick search on New York State’s government website.⁶ However, we were unable to find any evidence that he is a resident at New York Metropolitan Hospital or any hospital in New York for that matter. We were also unable to locate him in the faculty listing at New York Medical College. This was done through a couple of quick directory searches.⁷

We also checked for a board certification at certificationmatters.org to no avail.⁸ You would think a doctor of his stature would have some reviews online or at least a profile on RateMDs, an excellent source for user listings and reviews of over 2.6 million practicing doctors, but a search there turns up nothing.⁹

If Dr. Gonzalez actually practiced medicine at one time in New York or anywhere else in the US, we cannot find evidence of it. He does however list his booking agent, Aileen Abella, on his Instagram profile. Her bio states that she is in public relations, marketing, social media, events, and is a lifestyle and entertainment publicist.

It seems odd to us that Dr. Gonzalez is the doctor of choice for an interview with CNN advising the public on matters of health. It seems unfortunate that hundreds of thousands of people are reading his social media posts and taking his advice under the assumption that he is a top doctor currently practicing medicine in New York.

Dr. Gonzalez is not the only influencer doctor out there. He’s not even the most famous. Dr. Adam Goodcoff, (yes, like a good cough,) boasts 1.5 million followers across Tik Tok, Instagram, and Youtube.

Goodcoff’s LinkedIn affirms that he is an emergency medicine resident at the University of Illinois at Chicago, July 2020-present, just over one year. We looked into this, and he does appear on the UIC website directory as a resident of emergency medicine.

We were unable to find Goodcoff’s license to practice medicine in the State of Illinois,¹⁰ and that makes sense because as a resident he would still be working toward that goal. It is typical for a doctor-in-training to complete a residency before attaining a license to practice anywhere in the state unsupervised.

Nevertheless, it is alarming that a novice would receive so much attention and clout in his field. There is a host of articles about Goodcoff and the rise of his social media success through the pandemic. One such article from LA Weekly reads like a puff piece on Goodcoff.

With regards to his exponential social media growth since 2019, the article explains, “Goodcoff decided to utilize both his platform and expertise to educate the public about the dangers of the virus, debunk misinformation, offer healthcare advice, and even help boost vaccination rates amongst his online followers.”¹¹

Goodcoff’s Med Life website features an “as seen on” section that includes the likes of Fox, Newsweek, Cnet, NBC News, Yahoo, and others. His TikTok and Instagram focus on teaching medical procedures like suturing, placing an IV, intubation, and so forth. He also promotes products like brand named scrubs through paid partnerships.

All of this is fine, we aren’t knocking him for his success. But we have to wonder why news outlets aren’t finding more seasoned physicians to consult on matters of public health. You know, licensed physicians with their own offices and years of practice under their belts. Goodcoff is essentially a student himself.

Aside from that, medical residents in the US are expected to complete 80 hours a week in the hospital, with shifts that can last up to 28 hours of continuous clinical care.¹² It’s one of the most grueling experiences in the American workplace. How is he managing that alongside his frequent video shootings, huge fan base, paid partnerships, media interviews, and entrepreneurial endeavors?

Steven Ho, who goes by @steveioe on TikTok and Instagram, is not a doctor, and we appreciate that he declares this in his bio. He does say that he is a retired ER Tech. He has 9.5 million TikTok followers and 444,000 Instagram followers, promotes his own clothing line, and performs comical monologues on his social media. It all seems innocuous enough.

His skits, “Tips from the Emergency Room,” in which he always wears scrubs and appears to recall his experience as an ER tech (whether real or for comedic purposes, we aren’t sure,) are sometimes quite funny. However, a recent post from July 12 is not so subtle in its purpose.

Ho goes on a tirade regarding the emergence of the Covid-19 Delta Variant, “All you crybabies who don’t wanna put the mask back on because you think your faces are too pretty to cover up are making me want to throw up!  And apparently only 50% of the country is fully vaccinated.  If this was a graded exam, that would be an F.  F for f*ckin’ failure!  Luckily for those who are fully vaccinated, the Delta Variant doesn’t seem to want to kill you.  SHOCKING!  For the rest of you motherf*ckers who are still unvaccinated, good luck in Hell!”

Suddenly, he’s not so funny anymore. The peer pressure and outright shaming is palpable. Not everyone can physically wear masks or get vaccines. Not everyone needs to. There is something called natural immunity. You would think an ER tech would be sensitive to these things.

Who really is Steven Ho? A few online wikis such as Wikifamouspeople¹³ say that he’s a model and TikTok star who provides tips and tricks through videos on various health care issues. There is no information about where he supposedly practiced as an ER tech before he retired, but what’s interesting about the word “retired” in his case is that he is only 19 years old. If he practiced at all, it couldn’t have been for long. That doesn’t seem to matter to Stethoscope Magazine, which listed him as one of the “TikTok Docs You Should be Following,” and stated that his “content is very relevant and informative during the pandemic.”¹⁴

We know that this small sampling from the vast ocean of shady social media medical “gurus” asks more questions than it answers.

How did they become medical superstars so young and with so little field experience? One does not get millions of followers and interviews with CNN overnight for no reason. What financial incentives might there be to promoting the mainstream narrative regarding Covid-19, vaccinations, masking, and even the meatless diet? Could there be partnerships with pharmaceutical companies in play? Are these people who they say they are at all?

We wanted to share this information so that our readers can make their own decisions and come to their own conclusions. We wish no harm or harassment to any of the above influencers or anyone else for that matter. That’s not what we’re about.

But we do want everyone to see that people’s claims about who they are online can be drastically exaggerated and quite misleading, even those who are propped up by the legacy media. When it comes to public health, is this something that should be swept under the rug? Think critically, ask questions, and follow influencer doctors at your own risk.

Sources
1. A) Instagram The Worst As Social Media Slammed As ‘A Gateway For Child Abuse’ https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/03/01/surge-of-200-in-use-of-instagram-to-target-and-abuse-children/?sh=d309da759c4e
B) Social Media Is Accelerating the Spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material https://givingcompass.org/article/social-media-is-accelerating-the-spread-of-child-sexual-abuse-material/
2. Facebook’s Independent Fact-Checker May Not Be So Independent After All https://www.brighteon.com/b2689592-2a3b-47f6-9888-8910fb67ae4b
3. ¿Cuánto arriesgo a mi hijo al vacunarlo contra el covid-19? La evaluación que hay que hacer
https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/video/riesgo-ninos-vacuna-covid-inflamacion-corazon-miocarditis-doctor-mauricio-gonzalez-intv-camilo-egana-cnne/
4. Michigan boy dies 3 days after getting Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, CDC is investigating https://www.freep.com/story/news/2021/07/02/jacob-clynick-pfizer-covid-vaccine/5323095001/
5. Episode 15: Dr. Mauricio Gonzalez – Optimizing Your Health & Performance https://veganfitness.com/GenerationV/dr-mauricio-gonzalez-optimizing-your-health-performance
6. Find a Physician’s License Number https://www.health.ny.gov/professionals/doctors/conduct/license_lookup.htm
7. A) Find a Doctor: https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/doctors/
B) New York Medical College Directory https://www.nymc.edu/faculty/directory/by-name/
8. Is My Doctor Board Certified? https://www.certificationmatters.org/find-my-doctor/
9. Rate MDs Find a Doctor By Name https://www.ratemds.com/
10. State of Illinois DFPR Profile Search https://www.idfpr.com/Applications/ProfessionProfile/Default.aspx?did=10&cid=036
11. Meet Dr. Adam Goodcoff The Medical Doctor and Influencer Behind “The Med Life” https://www.laweekly.com/meet-dr-adam-goodcoff-the-medical-doctor-and-influencer-behind-the-med-life/
12. Why So Many Young Doctors Work Such Awful Hours https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/doctors-long-hours-schedules/516639/
13. Steven Ho Wikifamouspeople https://wikifamouspeople.com/steven-ho/
14. TikTok Docs You Should Be Following http://stethoscopemagazine.org/2021/02/01/tiktok-docs-you-should-be-following/