Join us as we kick off a new season of NRC Health’s Patient No Longer podcast designed exclusively for healthcare visionaries ready to envision a new era in the healthcare customer journey.

Revolutionizing healthcare one viewer at a time, hosted by Ryan Donohue, thought leader, author, and strategic advisor with NRC Health.

Dr. Mikhail Dr. Mike, DO, a board-certified family-medicine doctor with Atlantic Health System in New Jersey, known as “Dr. Mike” to his 25 million social media followers

In the latest episode of Patient No Longer, Dr. Mike discusses the power of digital media to help inspire trust in healthcare for a more meaningful human experience.

Dr. Mike expanded his care to include digital medicinal media so he could have a larger impact on patient care and evidence-based medicine via his digital channels. He also wanted to counter the spread of misinformation by popular doctors on television and social media. 

“To get views, those doctors have had to give up their medical ethics to some degree,” he says. “And we’ve never done that on the channel, and that’s what success is to me. So, when I was approached to join the NRC Health podcast, I saw a lot of alliance in the same thought process of making medicine human again—focusing on the person sitting in the room in front of you, instead of thinking about patients as numbers.” 

The tendency to rely on algorithms and systems neglects the imperfections of human beings. Dr. Mike cautions against the negative impacts of merging capitalism with healthcare, citing examples like the urgent-care model and the potential pitfalls of telemedicine. 

“Trying to combine and force capitalism and healthcare to coexist in every avenue shouldn’t exist,” he says. “There are so many ways that it can go wrong…we need to be very careful not to corrupt these very protected medical values, because those values are put in place to focus on humans. And when we think capitalism, when we think algorithms, we lose sight of that. And that’s why the passion behind working with NRC Health has existed for me from the beginning.” 

The future of medicine lies in the human-centric approach to medicine. Dr. Mike emphasizes the importance of treating patients as humans instead of just numbers. With a human-first approach in healthcare, he advocates for a team-based approach with patients and stresses the significance of effective communication.  

Transparent and communicative doctor-patient relationships are the best way to build trust in healthcare. The erosion of trust, Dr. Mike says, stems from systemic issues rather than individual providers.  

“It’s very easy to put yourself in a white coat with a stethoscope around your neck to be the superior person in the room—the one who needs to make the decisions, give the guidance, and bark orders,” he says. “And that’s the furthest thing from what creates success.”

Our healthcare system can be so problematic that it helps to advise patients on how to get the most out of visits. “Advice I would give patients is to really understand themselves before they come in for the visit,” Dr. Mike says. “And that’s kind of a broad answer, but more specifically, it means understanding what problem they’re having, what risks they’re facing, what they are actually afraid of, and what answer they seek to get. Because if you can come in with that game plan and want those questions answered, you’ll have a fulfilling doctor’s visit.” 

While social media efforts have a mixed impact on healthcare topics, platforms focusing on accurate information will go viral for the right reasons. For Dr. Mike, it comes down to content creation and technology to enhance patient education. 

“We must figure out what it does well and poorly, and how to boost the positive effects while minimizing the harms, which is what we do in medicine every single day,” he says. “I’ve made it my mission to not only put out accurate info, but also use it to market responsible content. We found that to be quite successful, because doctors are afraid of showing their human side on social media. 

“I want my patients skeptical,” he adds. “I don’t want them to believe that when some new magical product comes on the market, it’s the solution to all their problems. But I also don’t want them to disbelieve anything new. I want them to ask good questions. And I think that can be made possible with the use of technology in social media.”

Listen to the Patient No Longer episode to learn more about what Dr. Mike thinks about future surgeries and biopsies, the role of a doctor’s selfies online, and why ChatGPT can’t replace the role of human bonding. You can follow Dr. Mike on YouTube, check out his website, or listen to his podcast, The Checkup with Doctor Mike.  

Want to follow the Human Understanding movement? Check out NRC Health on social media.