I’m a 3rd year medical student and I’ve already been caught off-guard a few times by the WILD medical misinformation my patients talk about, and figured that I should probably get ahead of it so that I can have some kind of response prepared. (Or know what the hell they’ve OD’d on or taken that is interfering with their actual medications)
I’m setting up a dummy tablet with a new account that isn’t tied to me in any reasonable way to collect medical misinformation from. I’m looking at adding tik tok, instagram, twitter, reddit, and facebook accounts to train the algorithms to show medical misinformation. Are there any other social media apps or websites I should add to scrape for medical misinformation?
Also, any pointers on which accounts to look for on those apps to get started? I have an instagram account for my artwork and one for sharing accurate medical information, but I’ve trained my personal algorithm to not show me all the complete bullshit for the sake of my blood pressure. (And I have never used tik tok before, so I have no goddamn clue how that app works)
Is there medical stuff on nextdoor? Esp if you have older patients it may help.
Facebook.
You may enjoy Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine. They do a lot of history stuff but as time has gone on it has more and more been about current events, exploring the history and science behind these grifts. Not exactly what you’re asking for, but Dr. Sydnee is one of my leftist role models and I think they do great work to identify and explain these things to laypeople.
This looks like a great recommendation, thank you!
Reddit, facebook, quora…
Facebook, tiktok, insta. Influencer girls promoting their own products, mineral stones, etc. Groups with conservatives, old people, MAGA, right wing extremists, hippies, yoga guru’s, basically any group with low IQ people who feel hurt and claim a monopoly on the truth. Truth social could be great too. And religious groups of course.
Truth social is one I hadn’t thought of. I should also look into getting on an emailing list from Goop.
Be aware that when you seek out medical disinfo on social media, you don’t just increase its visibility in your own feed, but in everyone else’s as well.
One account in the milieu isn’t going to make that much of a difference.
Not a doctor but I’d love this as well. I’ve seen various assorted noctors and nurses and other patients spout some shit that was so wildly off base I couldn’t even imagine how this came about or was even believable in the slightest.
I remember the one time a really good nurse told me how I “seemed alright” because I was decently informed on my condition and asked appropriate questions and it’s been in the back of my head ever since how she thought it was a noteworthy exception to the norm that she could somewhat trust me.
ask your patients where they are getting their stuff from, that way you will also know what places are more popular than others.
I do ask them, but some of the things they say/ask about are just so baffling that I’d like to know about it ahead of time so I know what to respond with or recommend instead. Also, it’s kind of along the lines of needing to know all the slang terms for drugs so I know what they’re talking about when they OD on something or take something that interferes with their actual medications.
There I can help, well kind of: not a medical advice though!
I highly appreciate the effort you’re putting in - and in addition to preparing for everything practice w few communication patterns on how to make them give you the info you need. You won’t be prepared enough for some of the shit people come up with, no chance.
S good example could be a set of guided questions or statements they should disagree or agree with.
I’m not medically educated at all so I can’t come up with food examples but what I’m trying to say is: prepare at least as well for crazy as you’re preparing for hard facts.
And for the drugs I can at least give s language perspective: slang has often very local derivates so while pages Likes these are w good stating point: https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/drug-alcohol-slang/ nothing beats a native speaker.
So you could either start a career as drug addict, or if you lack the funds and time, you could reach out to your local social workers and ask them to give a brief slang training wherever you work. From experience many are very happy to help others who get helping!
Just a few ideas, perhaps something resonates with you! Good luck ❤️
I can help a little. ‘Zaza’ is a new term for the marijuanas.
It hurts my soul that this is actually a good addition.
Any homeopathic group or moms advice group.
Look for any common condition using any search engine and discover just how misinformed the global population really is.
I am an ICT professional with over 40 years experience and in my own field it’s often obvious how a technical response sounds right but is in reality absolute bollocks.
I know from lived medical experience that the same is true for medicine. However, being outside my own field it’s much harder to detect, even with quotes and citations.
University press releases, they often are very far from what the actual research says
Bookmarked on my personal accounts because then I’ll have access to full text articles through my institutional subscription when I go digging. :)
Dunno what type of tablet you’ve got but Apple News is pretty solidly loaded with medical fear mongering that’s sanewashed via being from interviews with “experts.”
Buzzfeed, Newsweek, HuffPost, etc. are your main name-brand culprits. Other magazines/websites also push this garbage but it’s a little more obvious.
Other key words across social media would probably be “nutritionist,” “coach,” “guru,” and other catchy terms that basically mean unlicensed. I’ve never used TikTok but when I was on Instagram years ago those were the biggest offenders.
Signing up for emailing lists is probably a good place to start. I also accidentally subscribed to an RFK apologist Substack when it was recommending health-related writers to me.
I got you.
Any pyramid scheme that has anything to do with food or health. Their books are troves of made-up shit. Sometimes they’ll say true things (i.e. highly processed foods are less nutritious than whole foods), but then tell you to eat highly processed food five times a day.
They’ll have several hour-long meetings where they talk about how the magic crystals, protein bar, or energy shake is changing their life.
Their websites are fucking whack-a-doodle. There’s usually one quack with an MD rubber-stamping, fabricating, and/or misrepresenting evidence.
