NEW YORK, UNITED STATES – 2023/03/26: Doctor Mikhail Varshavski speaks during US Senator Charles … [+]
When Dr. Mikhail “Mike” Varshavski talks about creating medical content, he doesn’t start with algorithms or viral trends. Speaking at the 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai last week, he revealed the secret to his success: confidence.
“The key to why I have so many views and why our team has been so successful in creating this content is because we perform with confidence first,” said Dr. Mike, whose medical content garnered over 4 billion views last year alone.
Long before he became the most followed doctor on social media, Dr. Mike recognized a critical gap in health care information on the Internet. In 2017, he warned the American Academy of Family Physicians about the dangers of missing medical professionals from digital spaces. His concerns were first-hand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What we saw during the pandemic was an influx of myths and misinformation, where it pushed people to make really bad decisions about their health, so much so that they lost loved ones, made terrible decisions about their children,” reflects Dr. Mike.
In an online landscape where absolute security often gets the most attention, Dr. Mike takes a counterintuitive approach. “The easiest way to tell the difference between a real social media expert and someone who’s just faking it is the amount of confidence with which they present the accuracy of their information,” he explains.
This philosophy stems from his real-world medical practice. “When a patient comes into my office and asks me about his abdominal pain, I’m not going to give him the exact diagnosis. I’m going to give him the most likely diagnosis, followed by three other diagnoses that might be, a treatment plan that may or may not work, a second treatment plan that may work if the first one fails, that’s how we should do medicine.
Creating medical content for millions comes with unique challenges. Just last year, the team of Dr. Mike produced thousands of videos that reached billions of viewers. While maintaining accuracy on this scale is not easy, it emphasizes the importance of transparency and humility.
“Everybody’s going to make mistakes when you’re as pleased as we are,” he admits. “Information changes. Things I once learned in medical school need to be updated. So you have to go back and update some things.”
Despite his massive following, Dr. Mike remains grounded in human connection. “I’m a human first, and that’s what it takes for my content to be so relatable,” he explains. Its content strategy focuses on making medical information accessible without sacrificing accuracy.
“When I make content, it’s always in a way where I’m trying to use a method of communication that will allow me to be relatable, transparent, honest and reach people on another level,” he says. “Because traditionally doctors give the information, frankly, it doesn’t work. We talk about scientific texts, but the more we can include cultural events, fun, laughter, be more human, the more we can reach people in a greater degree of knowledge.”
When asked about dangerous medical trends on the Internet, Dr. Mike points to a broader systemic issue. “It’s not about a piece of advice that has gone viral. I think it’s more about the insidious impact of fostering mistrust of us as medical professionals and organizations.”
He advocates for healthy skepticism while maintaining respect for the scientific process. “We need healthy debate. We need healthy skepticism. But it’s about waiting to get good information about why we’re skeptical.”
As social media continues to evolve, the success of Dr. His approach—combining medical expertise with relatable content, leading with transparency, and prioritizing trust over viral metrics—shows how professionals can effectively communicate complex information in the digital age.
The result speaks for itself: billions of views, millions of followers, and most importantly, a trusted voice in an often chaotic landscape of online health information. As Dr. Mike, success in creating expert content isn’t about numbers – “it’s about principles, passion and the definition you live your life by.”
