Ep. 10: “So Me” and “So You”: Unpacking Social Media in Medicine — with Dr. Dana Corriel

Social media has become the place where health information — good and bad — spreads fastest, so who should you trust? In this episode, Dr. Regina Druz talks with Dr. Dana Corriel, a board-certified internist and the founder of SoMeDocs (Doctors on Social Media), the very person who inspired Dr. Druz to launch this podcast. They explore where the real power of social media lies, the responsibilities (and legal realities) doctors face when they post online, the double standard between physicians and celebrity influencers, the thorny question of regulation versus censorship, and — most practically — how patients can cut through the noise to find verified, trustworthy health voices.

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Episode Chapters

[00:00] Introduction & Meet Dr. Dana Corriel
[02:30] How “Doctor So Me” Came to Be
[05:00] Where the Power of Social Media Lies
[06:30] A Doctor’s Responsibilities Online: Disclaimers
[09:00] Malpractice, IP & Owning Your Brand
[13:00] When Patients Self-Prescribe from Social Media
[15:00] Regulate or Censor? The Hard Question
[21:30] What Dana Actually Does: A Verified Directory
[23:00] Getting Started: Best Practices for Physicians Online
[26:00] Marketing Is Everything
[29:30] Burnout, Staffing & the Workforce Data
[35:30] Finding Trustworthy Health Voices Online
[40:00] The Future: Curated Communities & 2025

Transcript

[00:00] Introduction & Meet Dr. Dana Corriel

Dr. Regina Druz (00:00): Welcome to Own Your Heart Health. I’m Dr. Regina Druz, your holistic cardiologist. This week we’ll dive into common heart health concerns, uncovering root causes and unpacking scientific discoveries and controversies. The information provided does not constitute medical advice. Please contact your healthcare practitioner before making any changes that may impact your health.

Dr. Regina Druz (00:30): Welcome, everybody, to a very special show. Today I’m joined by a good friend and my guest, Dr. Dana Corriel — and I hope I didn’t butcher your last name. Dana has been instrumental in helping me cross the gap and put myself out there on social media, including launching this podcast in 2024. I was very inspired by her work and by how she shows even Gen X docs like me that this is actually possible. Welcome, Dana.

Dr. Dana Corriel (01:00): Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited about the conversation that’s coming.

Dr. Regina Druz (01:15): I’m not Joe Rogan and you’re not Mel Gibson, but this is a good segue into what I want to discuss. There’s no question that social media gives people seeking health advice — patients, or people who think they should be patients — a way to crowdsource a lot of opinions. What I see in that space is a kind of willing suspension of disbelief: people setting aside their concerns and their logic and just going with whatever message resonates most. Before we dig in, tell people about yourself, and how you came to be ‘Doctor So Me.’

[02:30] How “Doctor So Me” Came to Be

Dr. Dana Corriel (02:30): I’m an internist, traditionally trained, and I practiced clinically seeing patients. Then I stepped away from medicine more than a decade ago, when I had my third child, and for a while I lived life as ‘not a doctor.’ That gave me a chance to clear my mind and really pay attention to how the world communicates. During that time I recognized how powerful the online space is. When I went back to practicing, I didn’t stop being involved online — because I saw that doctors were missing from a medium that was only going to get more powerful, and that’s exactly where we needed to place ourselves.

Dr. Dana Corriel (03:30): Fast-forward more than ten years, and I’m here not just with my own presence but with a very large community of doctors. Many of them are on social media to connect with other physicians — I’ve built Facebook communities for doctors on all kinds of niches, from side ventures to women’s leadership. Others want to get good information out there and to market themselves, which is increasingly crucial as physicians break away from systems. There are so many reasons to be online, and I cautiously encourage it, because it’s literally where everyone is — and it’s how we can positively influence patients and encourage better health.

[05:00] Where the Power of Social Media Lies

Dr. Regina Druz (05:00): Let’s unpack this — and by the way, no soup for you today. Though maybe you’re having soup; I’m the one on a fasting-mimicking diet, day four, so it’s only soups for me. You said social media is very powerful. Where is that power, from your perspective, having spent nearly a decade blending the medical world with the branding world?

Dr. Dana Corriel (05:30): The power is in the numbers — in where everyone is gathered and where their attention is. It doesn’t have to be a physical gathering; it can be a gathering of the minds. When the attention of the majority of humans is online, that’s where influence happens. That’s why the online world is something we as physicians should take seriously when we consider stepping into those murky waters.

Dr. Regina Druz (06:00): In branding and marketing we talk about know, like, and trust — KLT. When doctors and nurses are on social media, they build that know-like-and-trust factor: they come across as people, as well as experts.

[06:30] A Doctor’s Responsibilities Online: Disclaimers

Dr. Regina Druz (06:30): Setting aside personal branding and becoming a key opinion leader for a moment — what responsibilities do physicians have on social media when it comes to patient education? What are the best practices, and what’s your advice to physicians who are putting out health-related advice, and to patients seeking it?

Dr. Dana Corriel (07:00): It depends on the physician, but number one is to make sure you’re legally covered. Having earned a medical degree makes you more responsible, for good or bad, so the first thing is a disclaimer. Everyone who follows you, reads your posts, or listens to you — especially if you’re giving medical advice — should understand they need to take that information back to their own doctor, because every patient is different. A recommendation that’s great for one person may not be right for you if you have certain conditions. So keep medical advice general, use case examples, and make clear that people should apply it only after speaking with their own physician. That’s the beauty of being online: you can curate so many kinds of presence, and it can actually be fun if you view it that way.

[09:00] Malpractice, IP & Owning Your Brand

Dr. Regina Druz (09:00): Do you think malpractice carriers should cover physicians for the general medical advice they put out online? We’re in an age where it’s hard to document the veracity of information — we’re having battles over TikTok at the level of the U.S. government, and a major platform recently suspended one of its fact-checking policies. Even generic advice carries enormous amplification. Should carriers have some clause that helps doctors bring verifiable, real information into the social media domain to cut through the clutter?

Dr. Dana Corriel (10:00): I think this is an evolving field that needs attention so we can figure out our place in this new world. When I first delved into social media, I reached out to my healthcare lawyer to make sure everything was buttoned up — that my employer knew I was on social media and that I owned the brand I was building, which is really important for autonomy. The lawyer basically said, ‘What are you talking about? Just practice medicine.’ It was such a new concept that it almost seemed ridiculous to him. Fast-forward ten-plus years, and I’ve heard of many physicians whose intellectual property gets challenged by the hospitals that employ them, which claim some ownership of the brand. That’s why it’s so important to write these things into your contracts and make sure you own you.

Dr. Dana Corriel (11:30): Absolutely there should be some coverage — whether a disclaimer a lawyer helps you craft, or a malpractice provision. But I also want to name an uncomfortable double standard: doctors are made to feel they should be afraid to talk about things online, while the general public gives advice freely. Kim Kardashian doesn’t think twice about giving advice, but we have to. Isn’t it ironic? Doctors hold back for fear of being sued, while celebrities do it in a heartbeat because there’s no liability.

[13:00] When Patients Self-Prescribe from Social Media

Dr. Regina Druz (13:00): This is timely. Just yesterday I was with an established patient — we’ve worked together almost a year. He has serious cardiac conditions and is on heavy-duty medications, including blood thinners, and he has a pacemaker. He mentioned that, unbeknownst to us for the past six or seven months, he’d been taking some kind of supplement drops he couldn’t name, because they ‘make him feel good.’ I suspect that’s social media influence — a post, a reel, or a podcast from a non-physician provider. In our programs we spend a lot of time checking every supplement for interactions, because these are serious cardiac medications. And he just went for it — feeling great, perhaps, until the next episode of atrial fibrillation lands him in the hospital. You mentioned the double standard; we’re now moving, even at the congressional level, toward more transparency and accountability. Should there be rules for healthcare content on social media — the way Google AdWords already flags and restricts health content?

[15:00] Regulate or Censor? The Hard Question

Dr. Dana Corriel (15:00): It’s a very complicated question, because it comes down to how we can regulate this. Regulation matters most for straightforward rules — ‘don’t kill someone’ is a regulation we enforce. Regulations exist to prevent harm. It gets tricky when we ask what we regulate, how, and who. As a physician I’d love to say health advice should come only from doctors — but it’s complicated, because pharmacists, for example, spend years learning about medications and can absolutely make a great podcast or video about a drug and its side effects. If only doctors were allowed, they couldn’t. So who enforces it? Does someone need a degree, a specific degree? Do we need an online police force? I don’t have the answer — this is stream-of-consciousness.

Dr. Regina Druz (17:30): I asked you a tough question on purpose.

Dr. Dana Corriel (17:45): It is tough. Right now, the people making these decisions — the de facto police force — are the owners and boards of the platforms themselves. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are deciding what goes and what doesn’t. Musk said ‘no censorship,’ but then you see a lot of hatred, racism, and antisemitism out in the open. So the problem is: do we censor, do we regulate, is there a difference, and — most importantly — who gets to decide what’s right, what’s wrong, who’s allowed, and who isn’t? I’d love more regulation so people don’t fall for bad advice, but it’s genuinely complicated to do.

Dr. Regina Druz (19:30): I don’t think physicians should be the only ones on social media — the healthcare ecosystem is diverse. But here’s a parallel from my world, integrative medicine: the FDA doesn’t tightly regulate supplements, yet it provides oversight, so supplement labels carry standard language — ‘this has not been shown to cure or prevent any disease; consult a healthcare professional.’ What if healthcare content on these platforms carried a similar disclaimer? Just as a podcast flags whether content is explicit or for a mature audience, health posts could flag that they’re for information only and that people should check with their practitioner. Otherwise we get situations like the reports that Instagram content was worsening eating disorders in young girls by promoting very thin body types — something the company committed to address. There are real ‘food fights’ in the healthcare space every day, and they can get ugly, even among professionals. Could a disclaimer approach work, and do you use one?

[21:30] What Dana Actually Does: A Verified Directory

Dr. Dana Corriel (21:30): I realized I never said what I actually do — and I do not dole out medical advice. What I’ve built is a platform that features verified doctors, clearly distinguishing one expert from another so people understand the differences in titles, training, and background. We’re looking at expanding to other healthcare professionals, but always with that clarity. So no, I don’t personally give medical advice — and I can see the worrisome side of it. Any doctor who goes online to give medical advice needs to be careful and make sure their t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted.

[23:00] Getting Started: Best Practices for Physicians Online

Dr. Regina Druz (23:00): What’s your recommendation to physicians who are contemplating building a presence, or looking to scale what they have? What are the good practices and the things to avoid?

Dr. Dana Corriel (23:15): Number one: take time to explore. Figure out how each platform works, which one you’re drawn to, which makes you feel proud of what you’re building — they all have different characteristics. And identify your goals, because there’s no universal step one and step two; it depends on the doctor. That’s why so many docs come to SoMeDocs — they want guidance specific to them. If your goal is to split off and form your own private practice, you’ll post very differently than if you’re happily employed and building thought leadership to get invited as a paid speaker. Doctors at big health systems are used to having patients handed to them — that’s a beauty of working for a large entity — but the moment you split off, suddenly you have to market yourself, and marketing isn’t most doctors’ forte. Marketing actually lies at the crux of social media and social-media influence.

Dr. Regina Druz (25:00): Hi everyone, it’s Dr. Regina. I know there are contradictory opinions about nutrition for heart health and longevity — the discussion gets heated and confusing. Some push low-fat, low-cholesterol; others are fans of ketogenic diets; and there are many voices urging vegan or vegetarian eating. To cut through the clutter, my team and I created Holistic Heart University: on-demand courses, nutrition and lifestyle resources, and supplement guidance to make healthy choices for your heart easier to understand. I’m especially proud of our open office hours and the Q&A feature where you can put us in the hot seat. Head to the show notes for the link and use promo code OWNER20 for 20% off our annual subscription. I’ll see you in office hours.

[26:00] Marketing Is Everything

Dr. Regina Druz (26:00): What do you mean by marketing? I’m a believer in strategic marketing — first you need a strategy: your personal and professional goals, your most comfortable forums, and what you’re trying to accomplish; then marketing aligns to those goals. What kinds of marketing should doctors know about, and what are the pitfalls that can trap patients into influencer zones where they’re not making the best decisions for their health?

Dr. Dana Corriel (27:00): There are always pitfalls — the world isn’t black and white, and people sometimes misinterpret what you say, with unintended consequences. But marketing is something we all do every day. We market from our first morning interaction with our children — convincing them to eat an omelet or oatmeal instead of sugary cereal is marketing and negotiation. As a physician, when a patient insists on an antibiotic for what you’re convinced is a virus, you’re marketing against the antibiotic, proving why it isn’t warranted. Marketing applies to everything. It’s especially important for doctors. If you’re in private practice, it’s obvious — you need to market to your patients. If you work for someone else, you should still contemplate it, because you shouldn’t rely solely on your employer.

Dr. Dana Corriel (28:30): What’s happened in healthcare is that employers almost own us — including our marketing. Even when they promote your expertise, it’s ultimately to funnel people to them. And when you’re let go, or you quit, or you go elsewhere, they are not going to make sure your patients stay with you. So owning your own brand and voice matters.

[29:30] Burnout, Staffing & the Workforce Data

Dr. Regina Druz (29:30): Let me share my screen — there’s a striking report, the NEJM Catalyst survey on the healthcare workforce. The two biggest workforce challenges organizations report are staffing shortages and burnout, and there’s a strong theme of frustration: physicians and nurses describe medicine as corporate, with production pressure, a lack of autonomy, and growing distrust in leadership — a negative sentiment that’s rising both in and outside the U.S. So, does social media compound this, or could it help alleviate it? What do we know about doctors who’ve gone into the social media space?

Dr. Dana Corriel (32:30): It depends on how you use it. Social media gives us a medium to connect rapidly and build advocacy around the very things that cause burnout. With SoMeDocs, for example, we run conferences every month, so I don’t have to fly everywhere to network and collaborate — for me, impact is about connecting quickly and finding solutions, and that saves time, resources, and money. From that angle it’s great. But sure, it can also contribute to burnout: social media itself can be exhausting and overwhelming and can fuel FOMO. At the same time, it shows doctors that others like them are suffering, which legitimizes their feelings — ‘it’s not just me’ — and can give them the push to bring about change in their lives.

Dr. Regina Druz (34:00): Hi everyone, it’s Dr. Regina. Many of my colleagues and I are seeing patients arrive with self-ordered blood tests. When this trend started, I thought it would help — who doesn’t want more access to their health data? But too often self-ordered labs lead to more confusion and frustration: patients come in with a pile of results and are no better off. That’s why we created HeartWell Toolkits — a curated collection of at-home blood and genetic markers focused on heart and brain health that gives you the data you need to make informed, actionable decisions. You can order them at the shop on holisticheartcenters.com — the link is in the show notes. Use code TESTING10 for 10% off and free shipping.

Dr. Regina Druz (35:00): Curated collections also provide community. If you follow a thoughtfully curated medical collection, there’s a sense of belonging and some alignment in how people think — and when you’re stuck in the grinder of corporate medicine with burnout near 70%, you need that support.

[35:30] Finding Trustworthy Health Voices Online

Dr. Regina Druz (35:30): Let’s switch to the patient’s perspective. Many adults — I see it in my own kids, now young adults — turn to ‘Dr. Google’ first. Years ago my teenage son told me, ‘Mom, you were right — I checked on Google.’ Of course I was right; I’m a doctor. But for patients trying to crowdsource health advice — especially now that search engines are serving up content through generative-AI experiences — what’s the best place to find a higher proportion of true medical information, rather than being swayed by influencers and noise?

Dr. Dana Corriel (37:00): I have a good answer, because it’s exactly what I built: doctorsonsocialmedia.com, which includes a public directory. You click in, choose your type of expert — we started with doctors — and every verified medical doctor who’s joined appears in a neat profile, like a digital business card. You can filter by condition, by specialty, even by the format you prefer. Say you have a new cancer diagnosis: click into oncologists, then narrow further. Want a cardiologist you can listen to? Filter to podcasts, and Dr. Regina Druz comes up, because she’s a member with a podcast page. Prefer to watch a surgeon’s videos? Choose YouTube. Want to read? Filter to writers and follow a urologist’s blog. I created it because people feel helpless online, asking ‘who should I follow, who should I trust?’ — and now they can know the person is a verified medical doctor.

Dr. Regina Druz (39:30): That’s extraordinary, because it cuts through the noise and puts real, credentialed voices front and center — voices you don’t have to agree with, but that you know are real people with genuine expertise and thought leadership.

[40:00] The Future: Curated Communities & 2025

Dr. Regina Druz (40:00): What’s in store for SoMeDocs in 2025?

Dr. Dana Corriel (40:30): We have live and virtual conferences every single month, on different topics and for different audiences — some for healthcare professionals, others for the public, on everything from menopause to writing in healthcare to private practice, obesity medicine, and AI. We also have membership options for doctors, students, and experts, and I’m excited to expand those, including a new SoMeDocs coaching cohort for consultants and coaches. The goal is to help docs build brands and be happier using their degrees.

Dr. Regina Druz (42:00): I agree. The evolution is from open-access internet with mixed-quality information toward more curated, often protected community spaces. We’ve had a lot of success running our own community, Holistic Heart University, with curated content for both patients and professionals, plus educational and affiliate opportunities and a forum to interact. For my patients, it’s been a real bonus — I get to see sides of them you don’t see in a traditional encounter. The most valuable part is preserving that human-to-human interface, because the more I work with AI, the more I value genuine human connection and a network of like-minded people. Dana, thank you so much for being a lovely guest and giving us the inside look at social media for both physicians and patients. Please follow Dr. Dana Corriel on her social channels, and we’ll include links to SoMeDocs in the show notes.

Dr. Dana Corriel (43:30): Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Regina Druz (44:00): To the professionals listening: if you’re thinking of launching a cardiometabolic or integrative cardiology program in your practice, we can help. Holistic Heart Centers helps physicians in practice expand into hybrid or concierge services — head to the show notes and click the application link; your intro call is entirely free. Ready to schedule a practice review? Use code DOC10 for 10% off our Practice Power Hour, a 60-minute coaching session. Thank you for tuning in to Own Your Heart Health with Dr. Regina Druz. This podcast is powered by Holistic Heart Centers. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review us on your favorite platform, and visit holisticheartcenters.com and subscribe to our YouTube channel. See you next week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it safe to get health advice from social media?

Social media can be a useful starting point, but it should never replace personalized care from your own clinician. As Dr. Corriel explains, the same advice that helps one person can be wrong — even harmful — for someone with different conditions or medications. A real example in this episode: a cardiac patient on blood thinners with a pacemaker quietly added unnamed supplement ‘drops’ he found appealing online, without checking for dangerous interactions. The practical guidance is to treat online content as general information, look for clear disclaimers, and always bring what you learn back to your own physician before acting on it — especially if you take prescription medications or have a chronic condition. This episode is itself educational and not a substitute for individualized medical advice.

How can I find trustworthy doctors and health information online?

Dr. Corriel built SoMeDocs (doctorsonsocialmedia.com) partly to answer this. Its public directory lets you find verified medical doctors and filter them by specialty, by condition, and even by the format you prefer — podcasts, videos, or written blogs. So if you have a new diagnosis, you can click into the relevant specialty, narrow down, and follow a clinician knowing they’re a verified physician. More broadly, look for credentialed experts who disclose their training, who include disclaimers, and who encourage you to confirm advice with your own doctor. Be cautious with influencers and celebrities, who often give health advice with no accountability or liability. The goal is to cut through the noise and follow real, credentialed voices — even ones you don’t always agree with.

What should doctors keep in mind before posting health content online?

According to Dr. Corriel, the first priority is being legally covered: include a clear disclaimer, keep medical advice general (using case examples rather than individualized direction), and remind followers to take information back to their own physician because every patient is different. Equally important is protecting your brand and intellectual property — she recommends physicians address social-media activity and brand ownership in their employment contracts, since some hospitals have challenged doctors’ ownership of brands they built themselves. Beyond the legal basics, she advises exploring platforms to find the one that fits you, clarifying your goals (private-practice growth versus thought leadership, for example), and recognizing that marketing — which we all do every day — is central to having an effective online presence.

Does social media help or worsen physician burnout?

It can do both, depending on how it’s used. On the positive side, Dr. Corriel notes that social media lets physicians connect and collaborate rapidly, build advocacy around the drivers of burnout, and run efficient virtual events without constant travel — saving time, money, and energy. It can also reduce isolation: seeing that other doctors face the same frustrations legitimizes those feelings and can motivate change. On the negative side, social media can itself be exhausting and overwhelming and can fuel FOMO. Against a backdrop of staffing shortages, production pressure, lost autonomy, and burnout approaching 70% in some surveys, curated professional communities can offer real support and a sense of belonging — if used intentionally rather than passively.

Show Notes & Resources

Guest: Dr. Dana Corriel, MD

Dr. Dana Corriel is a board-certified internist and the founder and CEO of SoMeDocs (Doctors on Social Media; doctorsonsocialmedia.com), a healthcare innovation hub that helps physicians build their voices, brands, and communities online — and helps the public find verified medical experts to follow. A recognized healthcare branding and strategy expert, she has been named a Top 20 Social Media Physician Influencer by Medscape and one of Medical Economics’ Top Ten Internists to Follow, has served as guest faculty at Harvard’s writing and social-media conference for healthcare professionals, and has been featured in outlets from the LA Times to The Boston Globe.

SoMeDocs (Doctors on Social Media): doctorsonsocialmedia.com
Dr. Dana Corriel: drcorriel.com

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

SoMeDocs / Doctors on Social Media (doctorsonsocialmedia.com) — verified physician directory, communities, and monthly conferences
SoMeDocs public directory — filter verified doctors by specialty, condition, and content format (podcast, video, blog)
NEJM Catalyst — healthcare workforce survey on staffing shortages and burnout (referenced on-screen)
Holistic Heart University — on-demand courses and a curated community for patients and professionals (use code OWNER20 for 20% off annual)
HeartWell Toolkits — at-home heart and brain health lab panels (use code TESTING10 for 10% off and free shipping)
For clinicians: Practice Power Hour coaching with Holistic Heart Centers (use code DOC10 for 10% off)

Holistic Heart Centers

holisticheartcenters.com
HeartWell.ai — AI-powered cardiovascular risk assessment
Address: 55 Bryant Avenue, Suite #6, Roslyn, NY 11576
Phone: 877-511-5166
YouTube: @reginadruzmd
Instagram: @dr.reginadruz
Podcast: Own Your Heart Health — available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms

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