Louisville Medicine Volume 70, Issue 7 | Page 6

FROM THE PRESIDENT by VALERIE F . BRIONES-PRYOR , MD , MHA , SFHM , FACP

Influencers By Default

Mabuhay *! Like many of you , I learned a great deal about non-medical things during the first year of the pandemic . I learned to crochet , to bake bread , how to stockpile toilet paper and most importantly , I learned about Minecraft .

For those of you unaware of Minecraft , it ’ s an online game played by almost every 7-yearold to 9-year-old I know and was my son ’ s main connection to his friends during the time of lockdowns and home schooling . I did not know much about Minecraft at the time he started playing and was amazed at how quickly he became skilled at the game . I was happy to hear him talking with his best friend on video chat while they built worlds together , navigated around the Nether and finally beat the Ender Dragon . When he and his friends weren ’ t playing Minecraft , they watched YouTube videos about Minecraft , and that ’ s when I soon learned about Unspeakable .
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Unspeakable is an online gamer who creates YouTube videos of himself playing Minecraft , talking about Minecraft and just hanging out with his friends . He is apparently worth over $ 20 million and has a following of over a million subscribers to his YouTube channel . He is also one of the top influencers in the gaming world , which is very evident by how my son and his friends emulate him , either using his guidance to find items in Minecraft , or wanting to wear his “ merch ” ( merchandise ). Every new game that Unspeakable talks about and plays in his videos , my son and his friends need to have it . I even noticed that my son has picked up on some of Unspeakable ’ s jargon , and I have learned about terms like “ glitchy ” and heard him call his friends “ bro .”
Other gamers also have made it onto my son ’ s YouTube playlist . Like Unspeakable , they claim the title of Influencer . The title Influencer perplexed me when I started seeing it years ago , even before Minecraft came into my family ’ s lives . However , I have learned from the YouTube gamers just how much of an effect influencers have on our lives .
In medicine , when I first think of Influencers , my mind jumps to celebrity physicians , whether it ’ s Dr . Anthony Fauci or even ZDoggMD with his numerous musical parodies . During the early days of the pandemic , I would hear people talk about the things they would do or wouldn ’ t do because they heard Dr . Fauci or Dr . Peter Hotez talk about it on television or read about it on Facebook .
However , what I quickly realized is that the pandemic has given us , as physicians , the title of Influencer , whether we like it or not . At the onset of the pandemic , the public turned to physicians for guidance , and as a profession and by default , we have become influencers . That didn ’ t quite resonate with me until I was at church one day , and a few of my fellow parishioners came up to me , saying they had seen me on the news talking about COVID-19 , and said that they would get vaccinated if I said it was safe . Right then I realized that my actions as a physician and as a person have a big effect on others ’ lives , whether I know those people or not .
We may not be YouTubers or TikTokers with millions of followers , but we are Influencers in the lives of our patients and in the communities we serve . As Influencers we can have a positive effect , but also can leave a negative impression if we do not keep ourselves in check . Social media has made the spread of information , whether good or bad , too easy ; therefore , it is up to us to help educate our patients and the community about the important issues affecting health , and dispel the myths that lead to distrust of our profession .
We may not claim the title of Influencers , but collectively , physicians have been influencing the lives of many much longer than the YouTubers and TikTokers out there and continue to do so . My hope is that as physicians , we remember that influence is power , and just like the Marvel comics creator Stan Lee famously taught us through Spiderman , “ With great power , comes great responsibility .”
* Mabuhay is a Filipino greeting meaning “ long life .”
Dr . Briones-Pryor is the Medical Director for the Hospital Medicine Service Line for UofL Health and is the Chief Medical Officer for UofL Health Shelbyville Hospital .