
There are now so many medical professionals on Instagram that at least one hospital has created an entire position to govern it. Many nurses and doctors on Instagram combine the cute, aspirational lifestyle aesthetic of regular fashion and beauty influencers with actual medical tips from a vetted professional. Health care influencers who have flooded the site within the past few years say they’re fighting back against that kind of social media misinformation.


Its algorithmic recommendation engine can also conflate many types of “health” content, so that following one anti-vaccination account might push you to follow dozens of others, but could also group them alongside accounts promoting innocuous things like plant-based diets. While most of the time when we think of wellness influencers, we might think of acro-yoga couples or, on the extreme end, people like Freelee the Banana Girl, the nude vegan vlogger who lives in a South American jungle and eats exclusively fruit, there are some accounts that are actively harmful: Instagram has contended with a serious anti-vaccine conspiracy theory problem, for instance. It’s not a recognized dental subspecialty.” There is no specialty of cosmetic dentistry. “I see people all the time advertise things like, ‘My specialty is cosmetic dentistry. It’s created a new class of microcelebrities who, intentionally or not, wield enormous influence over how others live their lives, or at least how they present their lives on social media. Those who have succeeded at performing that wellness the most palatably for the platform have been rewarded with millions of followers, which in turn can bring brand deals and, with that, money. Scroll through the feed and you’re likely to see signifiers of social wellness (friends), mental wellness (books and bathtubs), and physical wellness (yoga and photogenic health foods) that might bear negligible resemblance to one’s actual life.

Instagram is a place where you are supposed to show off how “well” you’re doing, even if you’re not doing very well at all. After all, isn’t the only person who should be influencing anyone’s health their own doctor? Where did medical influencers come from? It’s also raised questions about the ethics of being a health care influencer. So it’s not surprising that within the past few months, tons of accounts like hers have popped up, gaining huge followings - largely made up of fellow medical professionals - by posting an insider’s view of the industry. HIPAA, the law that protects patient privacy and medical records, is also presumably not a high-priority consideration.īut for Sarah, and many young health care professionals like her, a sizeable Instagram following is a salve for a litany of problems experienced by those in the field: burnout, odd hours, and a lack of a creative outlet, to start. On the other hand, regular influencers don’t usually have to worry about whether promoting, say, CBD oil violates medical ethics.
#Skylar vox nurse scene free
Over the course of just four months she has amassed an Instagram following of more than 11,000 people.īeing a nursefluencer, a term that I have admittedly made up but that describes a growing population, is similar to being a regular influencer: You get someone to take pictures (for Sarah, it’s her little brother), you post often (once a day or else the algorithm will bury you, Sarah tells me), and promote products (like almost everyone I spoke to for this piece, Sarah receives free scrubs from the brand Figs).Ī post shared by Nurse Sarah on at 9:16am PST Along with modeling, Sarah, who asked not to reveal her last name, is a registered nurse.

Which is appropriate, considering “shesinscrubs” is her username. There’s one important difference: In all of them, she’s wearing scrubs. She poses on porches, by murals, in bathrooms, often with lengthy captions that reveal what she’s up to this weekend (wedding planning, working), words of inspiration, and her very relatable love of donuts. Over here she’s clutching Starbucks’s new Cloud Macchiato. Here she is standing dreamily in front of some ferns. Sarah’s Instagram feed is pretty typical for a 21-year-old model-slash-influencer living in Florida.
