Board certified gastroenterologist, social media influencer, author, and educator, Dr. Benjamin Schmidt (Doc Schmidt), combines his medical expertise with a dose of humor to navigate the evolving landscape of healthcare. In this episode, he explores the impact of social media on patient trust, the rise of self-diagnosis fueled by AI, and the growing frustrations with insurance red tape.

Can humor and education coexist in healthcare? How do doctors balance online presence with patient care? Why are younger patients facing rising rates of colon cancer, and what can be done? Doc Schmidt unpacks these issues while reflecting on his journey as a doctor and the takeaways from his viral success. Tune in for an engaging conversation that bridges medicine, technology, and humanity.

Here are six takeaways from our discussion with Doc Schmidt:

1. Social Media as a Medical Tool and Risk

Dr. Schmidt, known as Doc Schmidt, uses humor and education on platforms like TikTok and YouTube to demystify healthcare and connect with patients. While this builds trust and humanizes doctors, he also warns about the dangers of misinformation, especially from non-medical influencers promoting unverified supplements through platforms like TikTok Shop.

2. The Rise of Self-Diagnosis and AI in Healthcare

Patients increasingly arrive with self-diagnoses from online searches or AI tools. Dr. Schmidt emphasizes validating their concerns while guiding them with evidence-based medicine. He notes that while some self-diagnoses are accurate, others are based on controversial or unsupported conditions.

3. Distrust in the Medical System

There’s a growing wave of skepticism toward doctors, fueled by misinformation, pharmaceutical distrust, and social media narratives. Dr. Schmidt addresses these misconceptions by being transparent about medical training, financial realities, and his genuine intent to help patients—not profit from unnecessary treatments.

4. Insurance Frustrations and Systemic Barriers

Dr. Schmidt highlights increasing frustrations with insurance companies, particularly around prior authorizations and forced medication switches. These bureaucratic hurdles often delay care and can lead to patient harm, especially in managing chronic conditions like Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis.

5. Colon Cancer in Younger Adults

There’s a concerning rise in colon cancer among younger populations, prompting a shift in screening guidelines from age 50 to 45. Dr. Schmidt anticipates this age may drop further due to environmental and dietary factors, and he stresses the importance of early detection and public awareness.

6. Balancing Medicine, Creativity, and Burnout

Reflecting on his journey, Dr. Schmidt shares that while medical training was grueling, it was ultimately worth it. His creative outlet through social media has allowed him to merge his passion for film and education, offering a unique way to combat burnout and engage with the public meaningfully.

Transcript

Benjamin Schmidt:

There’s so many non-healthcare people that are simply pushing these random supplements, trying to get commissions on them, and using confusing terminology, using wrong facts to trick people into taking things that are most likely just not doing anything, but could be dangerous.

Michael Jerkins:

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast For Doctors, By Doctors. I’m Dr. Michael Jerkins, joined by my co-host Dr. Ned Palmer. Ned, how’s it going?

Ned Palmer:

Can’t handle it this winter, Michael. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but I’m gonna.

MJ:

What, live someplace that’s cold?

NP:

It’s shocking that Michigan is cold. That is true. That is true. We’re going to survive. How are you doing, Michael?

MJ:

I am cold, but in a different way. Arkansas, you know, it just isn’t the same as Michigan, it turns out—in lots of ways, probably. But temperature is one of them. I will say it did snow and we did sled. And I was proud of myself. I built a snow ramp made out of snow for my children and other neighborhood kids to potentially break a bone. There were no bones broken, I can say.

NP:

What an interesting way to assure job security as a pediatrician—to build a snow ramp. You might as well be a pediatric orthopod.

MJ:

Well, it is funny though, because a lot of people from the neighborhood came to sled and there was a dentist in the group and a pediatric surgeon. So I felt like we had our bases covered pretty much.

NP:

It’s true. You were also—if the videos that I saw were all true—sledding down the street, which also raises certain safety issues that I wanted to bring up.

MJ:

Well, there were adults that were scattered about the street that were spotting cars, and it was super icy. No car was going up and down.

NP:

Okay, okay. It’s good to hear. That’s reassuring. Just, maybe sledding’s not such a built-in reflex—I want to make sure you’re doing it safely when you get the opportunity, you know?

MJ:

Yeah, we’re not experts in Arkansas. Okay, so we gotta figure it out as we go. Not like you Michiganders. But I am very excited, and I think you probably are too, for our guest today—who is a very famous, I think you could say famous…

NP:

Absolutely.

MJ:

He’s definitely one of the most famous doctors I kind of know—besides you, of course, Ned.

NP:

And I you.

BS:

I don’t think this…

MJ:

But yeah, I mean, somebody that I think what’s interesting about him—not only is he a social media influencer as a doctor—he also very much speaks about kind of hot topic issues, both clinically and policy-wise, from a doctor’s perspective and is very engaging. He doesn’t really shy from some of these topics, which I think is admirable. And he’s funny.

BS:

That is it.

NP:

And that’s tough to do—tough to be bringing up things like healthcare policy, COVID vaccines, emergency response networks, gastroenterology—and find humor in all of it. So I, for one, am very excited to talk to our incredibly famous guest, Ben Schmidt.

MJ:

Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Benjamin Schmidt. Dr. Schmidt is a board-certified gastroenterologist practicing in St. Louis. He also makes educational and comedic social media content under the name Doc Schmidt. With his videos, he aims to educate about the healthcare system, medical training, and the world of GI. His videos on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram have hundreds of millions of views and have helped him gain over 1.3 million followers in total.

Both in the office and online, Dr. Schmidt’s goal is to educate the public about GI conditions and colon cancer screening, humanize doctors, and hopefully make people laugh along the way. Dr. Schmidt, welcome to the podcast.

BS:

Thank you so much for having me. Very excited to be here.

MJ:

We probably should start off and get this out of the way, but I would love for you to walk us through how in the world you started from someone training to be a doctor to having 1.3 million followers on social media.

BS:

Absolutely. Yes. It’s been a wild journey. I think I actually have COVID to thank for it to some degree because it was a little bit of COVID boredom that started things out. I started this in October of 2020. I had a week off from my GI fellowship. That was kind of the height of, I think, the Delta wave—when we kind of had a repeat of lockdown and everybody was obviously staying inside.

I had the week off and obviously I couldn’t travel. My wife was not off. So I was stuck at home and I had TikTok like everybody else. I downloaded TikTok when COVID started and I started just kind of messing around with making videos.

I had the unique advantage, maybe you could say, in that I made a lot of videos when I was in middle school and high school and college. I was sort of in the YouTube generation trying to make it big on YouTube. So I had at least made skits before, but this was the first time I thought: everybody else is making healthcare content, why don’t I give it a try?

So I made like three or four TikToks a day, just messing around. And from there, one or two of the videos started slowly going viral. Then I just got excited about that and about being able to educate and entertain people. And here we are four years later.

MJ:

That’s amazing. How long did it take for you to continue doing this when your fellows or other folks you were training with started to say, “I saw you on TikTok”? Or were you telling people, “Check out my TikTok”? How did that come about?

BS:

That’s a good question. It was fairly quick that they found it. I definitely wasn’t broadcasting it—I wasn’t hiding it per se—but a couple of people found me. I would say maybe two to three weeks after I had started posting, I had a video hit maybe 10,000 views on TikTok by that point.

I wasn’t as embarrassed by the notion just because I had been making YouTube videos when I was younger and I would often share those on Facebook or wherever. So I wasn’t embarrassed, but it’s not something I was shouting from the rooftops.

One of my co-fellows—he’s kind of a larger-than-life personality—he would be known for, as we walked through the hospital or cafeteria, telling the cashier about my TikTok account. He’d tell med students while we were giving them recs. So it was definitely something I became involved in—maybe not always willingly.

MJ:

Okay, so it took a couple weeks for your co-fellows to find out about the account. How long until a patient said they had seen you on social?

BS:

That’s a good question too. The one that sticks out with me the most was probably five or six months in. It was a young woman who was very anxious about the procedure—I think it was an EGD that we did.

She didn’t say anything beforehand or during. After the procedure, she sent an email to the address listed on my Doc Schmidt page saying something like, “Hey, I think this was you. I appreciate you doing my procedure. Hope this isn’t weird.”

So, recognition after the fact—which was kind of unusual, but very fun.

MJ:

And does that happen a lot now? Do patients bring up videos?

BS:

Now it happens more often. I’m done with fellowship and working in a private practice office here in St. Louis. Patients frequently Google me beforehand. It comes up easily and I don’t hide it—it’s even listed in my bio on my organization’s page.

So I’d say one or two patients a day bring it up. And you can always tell by their personality how they mention it.

The classic opening line is, “I’m surprised you’re not wearing a wig”—because of a character I do. And then I’ll play along. Others will just say, “I looked you up on TikTok.”

I think it humanizes me. Some might think it’s unprofessional, but I think it helps people see not just what I look like, but how I talk, how I interact—and hopefully puts them at ease a little bit before things start.

MJ:

Well, I’ve had a similar experience. Not with videos—but I have had multiple patients say, “Whoa… you’re a lot thinner in person.” That’s going to make Ned laugh. I think it’s because I have a big head.

But one thing I do like about your videos—and Ned and I have talked about this—is that you don’t shy away from hot-button topics that affect doctors and healthcare professionals. You engage, I think, in a professional way with folks I probably wouldn’t interact with normally.

So I guess the question is: what are some common misconceptions you run into about doctors? What do you experience on social media when interacting with people who hold those misconceptions?

BS:

Sure. There are misconceptions of all types.

One big area is misinformation—vaccine-related, COVID-related. But beyond that, people don’t understand medical training—how long it is, when doctors stop being students, when they start making a “real” salary versus the stereotypical doctor salary.

People think doctors shouldn’t complain about 24-hour shifts or 80-hour weeks because we “make so much money,” but during residency or fellowship, we’re not even making minimum wage in some cases.

There’s also a newer wave of distrust toward doctors—fueled by fear of Big Pharma, the influence of pharmaceutical companies. With TikTok Shop growing, you see tons of supplement videos starting with lines like, “This is what your doctor doesn’t want you to know,” or “They didn’t teach this in med school.”

That sort of gatekeeping just isn’t true. As a doctor, I recommend supplements—like fiber—every day.

People are surprised when I say, “I’d be happy if you never had to come back to see me.” I’m not giving you fake medicine to string you along. I want people to get better. I try not to give people medications or do procedures unless they’re needed.

MJ:

I have that same conversation a lot here. The thing I’ve gotten here recently is how much of a bonus I get for giving vaccines. Like the concept was like, I’m paid by vaccine I give, and I just had to try to share how that works in the healthcare system. And actually, clinics lose money generally on vaccines.

Same thing, like I would rather not do anything. It would be great if I didn’t have to prescribe a single medicine ever and I would happily do that, but sometimes we have to. And I think just hearing it from a doctor’s perspective really builds some of that trust. Hopefully—I mean, maybe this is wishful thinking—over the next few years, the distrust starts to shift back as they have these authentic conversations with their specialists. I don’t know.

I don’t know what you see in your private practice.

BS:

Yeah, I mean, I think there’s definitely people I see. Obviously, the anonymity of social media makes people a lot more aggressive or negative in their interactions with me than I think in person. But I had some borderline hostile interactions about COVID vaccines in fellowship, I remember—people bringing up nonsense arguments that are just inaccurate.

Obviously, it’s not productive to approach that with hostility, which is what I try to avoid both online and in person as much as possible. But yeah, I think that the discussion is naturally going to be a much more humane one, a much more civil one, if you’re in person and you’re able to just explain things. Like I said, it doesn’t come up for me quite as often because if people are seeking out medical care in my office, they’re open to that.

But I had a young patient with ulcerative colitis I just talked to in the last couple of weeks. He had been on Humira, Entyvio, all these different medicines, and got frustrated and went off of everything. He actually had no symptoms for two years despite not taking any of these medicines. But now his symptoms had come back. He was clearly reluctant to go back on a new biologic, but by not antagonizing him and instead trying to understand why he did that, I was able to guide him back. Based on my training and his symptoms, I recommended starting a new medicine, and that’s what we did.

MJ:

You engage a lot of different populations, both online and in your clinic, and have lots of questions—obviously very educated. One thing I was curious about is: how do you handle it when patients come to you with a self-diagnosis? Something they looked up online or now with AI—they type in their symptoms, and it spits out something. How do you handle that?

BS:

Yeah, that’s becoming very common. The literal answer is I usually say, “That could be,” when they first bring it up—because it could. I think it’s important to give some level of validation so they don’t feel antagonized from the start.

A lot of times, people come in saying they were diagnosed with something 20 years ago, like IBS, and I’ll say, “Yeah, that could be.” That makes them feel like I’m listening. Then we delve into what that disease means.

There are some controversial diagnoses in GI—like “leaky gut,” small intestine fungal overgrowth, or candida overgrowth. With those, I’ll say that theoretically, it kind of makes sense, but there’s not much evidence to support them as standalone conditions. They might be symptoms or side effects of other diseases.

I give credence to what they bring, so they know I’m on their side, but then I bring in my own experiences—as a doctor, from lectures, and from attendings who have seen more than me. I might say, “We haven’t seen this before, but new diagnoses are found every year, so let’s go one step at a time.”

NP:

I want to ask—so full transparency, I don’t do outpatient medicine. It’s been about a year since we noticed a leveling up of the AI models that are publicly accessible. Do you see better self-diagnoses yet?

BS:

I don’t know. I haven’t had enough patients to conclude that definitively. But yeah, there are a lot of people coming in saying they think it’s IBS, and sometimes they’re right. GI diseases have buzzwords: ulcer = midline pain, gallbladder = right upper quadrant pain. So there’s some reliability, at least in terms of identifying the likely diagnosis.

Since I’m in private practice now, I’m often the first GI they’ve seen, so I have an unfair advantage—the obvious things haven’t been looked at yet. But overall, yeah, sometimes they have a reasonable idea of what’s going on. And there’s still a lot of fear about cancer, but it’s not always unreasonable.

MJ:

I’ve had patients show me the output from ChatGPT and we’ll talk through it. I love ChatGPT—it’s not an official endorsement; they haven’t paid me. But it has definitely changed things, at least in primary care. That’s different from Ben’s experience.

I did want to ask one more thing, then I’ll let you ask questions. You mentioned your training and then moving into private practice. What do you miss about residency or fellowship?

BS:

I definitely don’t miss being the third or fourth opinion for undiagnosable GI cases. But in terms of what I miss—it’s the camaraderie. Being in a fellowship or training program is fun in that way. You have people to bounce ideas off of, to help each other when someone’s overwhelmed with consults. That shared experience.

I have that to some extent now—three physician partners, three NPs. We discuss cases, but it’s different. Everyone has different backgrounds and schedules, so it’s not the same as a true training program. That camaraderie and those wild, unique cases in training—that’s what stands out most.

MJ:

The thing I always hear is it becomes more like parallel play once you’re an attending. I’m stealing a pediatrics term. You want to communicate, but it’s not the same as being stuck in a hospital together for years—which sounds terrible the way I phrase it, but it’s kind of true. There you go. I’ll shut up now. I know you’ve got questions to get to.

NP:

Eating the same string cheese every day because someone stole a box from the cafeteria. Lot of string cheese. I should probably see a GI doc for how much I survived off of it.

Sticking with residency for a bit—this is more on the fun side: if you had to give an honest Yelp review of medical training, what would it say?

BS:

There’s the stereotypical line: “The days are long, but the years are short.” I think that’s accurate. You can have brutal shifts that feel endless, but it all goes by fast.

You’ll learn more than you ever thought possible in a short time—whether that’s a year, three years, or even a single day. It’s something I’d never want to do again, but I’m glad I did it.

NP:

A surprisingly fun thing I’ll never do again. I think that’s from Dave Eggers, so I should give him credit.

BS:

Yeah—10 out of 10, would not do again.

NP:

Any difference between residency and fellowship in that regard?

BS:

Yeah, definitely. Fellowship is very different. It’s more responsibility and stress at the beginning. I always joke: no one expects a medical intern to help, but everyone expects a day-one GI fellow to know exactly what to do. That’s stressful.

It felt like a steeper learning curve because the expectations are higher. You know more medicine going in, so you know how to manage patients generally, but GI fellowship is about learning new skills—like how to scope. That’s the biggest component.

It was more frustrating in some ways because it’s a hard skill to learn. There’s more failure—you can’t reach the cecum, you can’t remove a polyp, and someone has to take the scope from you. Internal medicine is more nebulous—you just didn’t diagnose something, but a senior helps you out. Fellowship felt more like a job, while residency felt like my life had been taken over.

NP:

Yeah, the shifting responsibilities are fascinating. I’ve called July 1st fellows before like, “Sorry, we need your expertise,” and they’re thinking, “I know what you know.” So you’ve been practicing now about a year and a half? This is your second year out?

BS:

That’s right.

NP:

What have you seen change the most drastically since you started?

BS:

Well, my perspective might be biased because I’m very tuned into social media, but I feel like the frustration with insurance companies has gotten worse. Patients are more aware of how messed up insurance is, and doctors are more open about it. Prior authorizations and the whole system have become more of a public outcry.

Also, awareness around colon cancer has improved. More people are coming in and asking about screening—even before age 45—just planning ahead. That’s been a positive change. I know a year and a half isn’t a long time to see huge shifts, but I think that trend is real.

NP:

This one stays with GI, then we’ll swing back to your social media work. I’ve seen a lot of headlines—some questionably scientific—about a rise in colon cancer among younger people. Is that actually happening? There’s evidence both ways, and I’d love to hear your take.

BS:
Well, I guess I must admit, the data that is the best data we have is what led to lowering the age from 50 to 45 for screening. And I think we’re compiling more data now to decide if, in the future, we’ll even have to lower it to 40. I do anticipate that. I don’t necessarily have evidence of that yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point we have to lower it further. The concern is the diet and environmental factors that play such a big role in many elements of the healthcare system—just the kind of metabolic syndrome, inflammatory syndrome that causes fatty liver and NASH and all these things that may be contributing.

Anecdotally, I have multiple cases of this. Obviously, we don’t want to lean on that too heavily, but I’ve seen, for example, a 33-year-old with colon cancer who was having symptoms. Or a 45-year-old who came in for routine screening and had an obstructing sigmoid colon cancer. Anecdotally, it’s a thing. And even though we’ve lowered the screening age, we are still seeing younger and younger people with issues. I think that’s a sign that systemic public health changes are needed.

NP:
Yeah, and I wonder—piggybacking off what you said—people are more in tune with their insurance and more aware of their barriers to care. I do wonder how much of what we’re seeing is a result of delayed or deferred care. Like you said, we’ve all got anecdotal cases—probably totaling in the thousands between the three of us—of people who willingly or willfully delayed care.

Sometimes they couldn’t afford it, didn’t understand it, or had low health literacy. And then there’s the perception that the insurance companies wouldn’t pay for it anyway. I hear that all the time in the inpatient setting—”I didn’t come because they weren’t going to pay for it.” But we don’t really know that until they’ve received care. Then they say, “Oh no, it’s too late now.” It’s very challenging. I think the intersection of environmental and nutritional concerns with increasingly difficult healthcare access is a real issue.

BS:
Yeah, I think there’s not much room…

MJ:
Can I ask a clinical question? I’m interrupting you—sorry. I can see your face; you look happy to answer this. I get questions about this all the time. I’m curious, Ben—there was a recent study, maybe from 2022 or 2023, about screening colonoscopies for colon cancer and their less-than-impressive impact on mortality.

How do you respond to patients who question whether they really need to do this, especially when they’ve seen headlines saying it didn’t reduce mortality?

BS:
Yeah, are you referring to that study from a Northern European country? I haven’t had a patient directly ask me about it, but colleagues have. I made a video about it when it came out. There were some problems with the study. One big issue was the adenoma detection rates of the doctors—it was much lower than the accepted rate. So either the doctors weren’t as experienced, or colonoscopies just aren’t done as frequently in Europe.

There were one or two other key issues, though they escape me now. But overall, the study wasn’t very representative of American practice. The ACG—American College of Gastroenterology—also issued a statement saying the study wasn’t sufficiently powered or applicable to U.S. standards to change screening recommendations.

MJ:

That’s kind of how I’ve answered it too—that it was done in a different place with a different design than how we conduct screenings. Maybe I saw your video—maybe you educated me. I appreciate that. Sorry, Ned.

NP:
No, no, it’s a great question. We’re both just peppering you with questions to become better clinicians. Take this back to our practice podcast and try to be better doctors. I was going to shift to some fun questions now. Put on your omnipotent hat for a second: if there’s one thing you could banish from modern healthcare forever, what would it be and why?

BS:
Love it. Well, depending on how serious you want to get—the first thing that comes to mind is using FOBT (fecal occult blood test) on admitted ER patients to assess for GI bleeding. It’s not how they’re supposed to be used. For people unfamiliar, it tests for hidden blood in the stool, and while that might sound useful for evaluating GI bleeding, it’s actually meant for occult bleeding—like what you’d screen for in colon cancer.

If someone comes in saying they’re having a GI bleed, or if there’s visible blood or melena, that’s all you need to know whether they need a scope. Whether the FOBT is positive is irrelevant in that case.

That’s a selfish answer. The unselfish one is related to insurance companies and prior authorizations. In GI, we see this a lot with biologics for Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. The trouble getting them approved is massive. Then, insurance companies suddenly decide not to cover a drug—even after we’ve gotten it approved and the patient has been on it successfully for six months.

It wastes time and sometimes directly harms patients. I had a patient on Humira, and we were told to switch to a biosimilar. Within three weeks, the patient had a flare.

NP:
Prior auth is definitely one where a lot of our audience would ride with you. Especially in your field—I hadn’t thought of it with biologics. A biosimilar is not the same. It’s kind of shocking it’s treated the same way generics are treated. Generic versus brand is the same drug. Similar is not the same. I have a brother. He looks like me. But we are not the same person.

BS:
Exactly—by definition.

NP:
I appreciate that one. Honestly, I could do away with the FOBT too. That one’s more selfish and targeted to your practice, but I think a lot of people would be on board.

MJ:
This is a hot-button topic, but how do you feel—by the time this comes out it might already be in effect—about the TikTok ban? How’s that going to affect you?

BS:
Funny you ask—at the time we’re filming this, I actually just posted a video about the TikTok ban. The title is, “Is the TikTok Ban Actually a Good Thing?” It’s a little clickbaity, but my thesis is: yes, in one specific way—it means TikTok Shop would be gone.

I have a lot of problems with TikTok Shop. While there are bigger concerns like freedom of speech and the reasons behind the ban, one silver lining would be eliminating TikTok Shop. I’ve made multiple videos about the healthcare side of TikTok Shop. It’s full of non-healthcare people pushing random supplements, using misleading terminology and false claims to get commissions.

It’s dangerous. People are promoting parasite cleanses, liver cleanses, and fake diagnoses. One series of liver supplements claims if you’re tired or bloated, you might have liver disease. Everyone has fatigue or bloating sometimes. It’s manipulative.

I even made a video about a guy who appears in scrubs and says he got fired from his hospital job for trying to help a patient. The video is very convincing—until you realize he’s posted dozens of identical videos promoting different scam products. He says the same line about being fired from a dentist’s office, an ICU, etc., all within days. It’s the same script.

I think we’d be better off without that. Financially, yeah, I’ll miss TikTok because I earn some money there. But overall, TikTok Shop is a net negative.

MJ:
So maybe, in that way, it’s a positive for society. Interesting. Do you think those people will just migrate to Instagram or YouTube Shorts?

BS:
Correct. And I talk about that in the video too. TikTok is unique in how it lets a nobody go viral overnight, and unfortunately, that also applies to TikTok Shop. It’s easier to go viral and sell a product instantly. On YouTube or Instagram, you have to click a link, go to another page—it’s less seamless.

There were supplement scams before TikTok, and there will be after. But TikTok made it worse.

MJ:

And this is a dumb question. Instagram, you can’t do that either. Because there’s ways to shop at Instagram, thought, too. But is it not the same?

BS:

I don’t believe it’s as extensive Instagram shop. I think Instagram shop is more an easier way to like link to products. Not like whereas TikTok shop. It’s like an Amazon platform within the app, which I don’t think shop Instagram shop is like that. But I must admit I don’t know either.

NP:

I hope they don’t go that route. Like I hope they don’t see that as a hole in the market and try to fill it. Yeah. Yeah. Particularly scary flavor.

MJ:

And that’s the thing I talk about with patients is like the accountability piece is the reading between the lines of what you said about these folks. The lack of accountability is the frustrating piece. Whereas all three of us on this call have a lot of accountability built in place for what we recommend or do not recommend. You can just be anybody and go on TikTok and push a supplement and say things that aren’t true. And that might, we never face any accountability.

BS:

Oh yeah. I mean, it’s just crazy. The things that I’ve seen people say, I had a guy saying that there were, I can’t even remember the details, but saying that something would put that, that like a imbalanced gut microbiome could put holes in your colon, for example, you know, just like completely nonsense. No, no, kind of—

MJ:

I might have some holes.

NP:

So I might honestly, I’ve got a little bit of belly pain and bloating. Feel like I’m full of holes here. Ben, I think I, I will say you mentioned it earlier and it just, I, I see it all the time and it’s one of my favorite. Really like nonsensical sales pitches. When you feel it back of like, don’t teach this in med school and you’re like, yeah, it’s nonsense. There’s no substance here. We completely agree. It’s a weird scenario where I’m completely in agreement with this.

Snake oil salesperson selling nutraceuticals or something.

BS:

But it sounds so appealing. You’re like, wait, why don’t they talk about it?

NP:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The conspiratorial side. Yeah.

MJ:

A couple of just zooming out a little bit, just on the occupation and then we’ll kind of close out here in a minute. But I ask this question a lot of other fellow doctors, is would you choose this path again? Looking back on it.

BS:

GI specifically, or just a matter of?

MJ:

Or just being a doctor first but yeah, GI then as a subsequent question.

BS:

Yeah, I mean, I think the way I usually answer that question, wouldn’t like if somehow I accidentally time traveled back with my current knowledge and experiences, I would not do it again, because I couldn’t go through it all again. But I would recommend to my younger self to still do it, I guess, if that makes sense. So if I was the one my mind and my body that would have to do it, I don’t think I’d be able to just because it is such a grueling process and all the steps that led to getting here. I just—

A tough road so I don’t think that should be undersold but I think the end of the road is worth it at least in the experiences that I’ve had at the end of that road. So if I was giving advice to my you know 15 year old self I would still recommend you do it again.

MJ:

And if you weren’t a doctor, what do you think you’d be doing?

BS:

Hmm. I mean, my second choice was being some sort of film director personally. So that’s why I’m pretty happy with where I’ve stumbled upon in this little niche of social media. Because, I actually wrote a—one of my—I still remember this—I wrote an essay applying to I think it was Emory’s medical school. And I talked about how I made this whole analogy about how like directing movies is like being a doctor.

And I had my mom read it and she was like, this kind of reads like you want to be a director rather than a doctor. You might want to do something different. And I rewrote the whole essay.

MJ:

So they didn’t actually see it.

BS:

No, they never saw it. Was like, yeah, that’s a good point.

MJ:

But that makes sense. Well, if your medical school self could see you now, what do you think they would say? I mean, I guess it’s totally unpredictable where you wound up to a degree, but.

BS:

Yeah, I mean, well, yeah, obviously the social media side, it would be, you know, utter shock and awe and excitement. Because that is—I’m a little bit unique in that I kind of always had that desire. I wanted to be famous on YouTube before I was a doctor. So that’s kind of a very fun, you know, come to fruition moment. But in terms of like where I am with my practice, I think the med student in me would be very kind of—

Proud and excited because that was when I started being interested in GI. So I think it would be cool for them to—for him to see the journey is worth it and has a successful end.

MJ:

Yeah, and to see like maybe it’s nice to have a few extra seconds and a TikTok then say a Vine where that was the shortest video we had. For those of you in the audience, I know it’s—

BS:

Right. I did make a few vines.

NP:

Seven seconds, right? Yeah, wasn’t that the the cap on it? Yeah. Tough to educate in seven seconds.

BS:

Very limited.

MJ:

Really creative. Yeah, I mean, it was very interesting. Here’s a question for you. If medical specialties were high school cliques, you know, like the jocks, the nerds, the class clowns, who would GI be?

BS:

I think well, I mean, I feel like they say that GI is kind of like the jocks of medicine specialties, like not obviously we’re not jocks like ortho like, but you know, like we don’t—like there’s some less nuance. So maybe we’d be like the nerdy jocks if that’s a thing like the nerds who play sports kind of thing, maybe.

MJ:

I like that GI is the nerds who play sports. And the internists that don’t become GI docs, they’re just the nerds.

BS:

Yeah. And then, yeah, cause you can kind of branch out like, cause infectious disease, feel like is nerdier nerds. GI is like going towards the jock way a little bit. Yeah. And like—

NP:

Yeah.

MJ:

We’re MedPeds. What’s MedPeds then?

NP:

I’m—

MJ:

Wow, that is kind of—

NP:

That may be, that may be the nicest thing. I don’t think it describes either of us, our scholastic endeavors, but it’s, that may be the nicest way. Like I get what you’re going for though. It’s the kid who’s like proud of having like zero tardinesses and like—

BS:

He just does, he follows the rules. He does what’s expected of him and he excels.

NP:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s equally likely to be found at a Dungeons and Dragons table and at like a ribbon dancing festival. Pretty, pretty, pretty equal parts.

MJ:

I guess it makes sense that both of those sound kind of fun. Or both. People ask me this all the time, but is there any medical theme sitcom or TV show that’s tolerable to you?

NP:

They’re appealing.

BS:

Yeah. I mean, I’m very unique in that I think House is great. I love watching House. I personally do not understand the problem that people have with House where they’re like, he does everything. It’s like, what do you want this show to be? Like, I don’t understand. Like you want to watch random groups of people that you don’t know doing the labs. It’s like, it’s just a vehicle for telling the story. Let them do lab themselves, please. Yeah, I love—

NP:

We need a film director to come on here and just like judge. Maybe we do a whole separate podcast and just Ben judges medical shows with your film director.

BS:

I have a lot of opinions on them.

MJ:

I’ve had people talk about The Resident. I’ve never seen that either, but it just seems like too close for me to want to watch it. Now I’ll just be annoyed. I don’t know if you’ve seen that.

BS:

Correct. No, I’ve never seen it. I just learned that it’s based off of a book about like, because they’re there. Marty McCurry wrote a book about these—written a lot of medical books, but he wrote this book about like how doctors make mistakes and like it’s called like Unaccountable or something like that. And apparently this show is based off of that. I have no knowledge of the show other than the trailer I’ve seen, but I didn’t realize that. And then there’s a new show that just came out.

At least as of us recording this in the last week on HBO called The Pit, which is supposed to be like kind of like an ER reboot vibes.

NP:

With Noah Wiley again. Think it brought back, yeah, right? Just, started to see a bunch of ads for that. It cracked me up. I watched about five minutes of The Resident and I was like, everybody’s well slept and attractive. Like I don’t, like, know, everybody looks great.

MJ:

There’s not enough scenes and people just writing discharge summaries.

NP:

I think yes.

BS:

Exactly.

MJ:

Totally unrealistic.

NP:

In like a yellowed white coat, like, because it’s just been dragging on things. Like, yeah, they missed some of that really thick patina that lived on all of us for several years.

BS:

You—

MJ:

Dr. Schmidt, I have one last question for you. We asked this to all of our guests and we’ll close out here. But tell us one thing that you’ve changed your mind about recently. We ingest lots of data, maybe more data than ever as human beings. But the premise is, do we use that data to just reinforce what we already believe? Or has there been anything recently that you’ve actually substantively changed your mind on?

BS:

You mean in the sense of like changing my medical practice and how I do things?

MJ:

It could be medical practice or an opinion that’s non-clinical or medical related.

BS:

Interesting. I think well the reason that I brought up Marty McCurry is because I just read a book of his about—Blind Spots is called Blind Spots about things that doctors have gotten wrong in the past talking about kind of famous things like the peanut allergy issue where we thought it was good to avoid peanuts, but then it showed that that actually increased peanut allergies and just different things throughout medicine. So maybe this is a little bit of a—

Of a cop out, I think that I’ve, since I’ve read it so recently, I haven’t had a chance to fully use it, I guess. But for me, it sort of depressed me a little bit in the sense where I’m like, nothing is real. What am I even doing? These things that, you know, we think are standard of care are potentially just completely wrong. So for me, I guess it’s trying to not just do what I was taught in fellowship and—

Look up things more consistently in the sense of my only reason for doing something shouldn’t be just because that’s what they did in fellowship. So I haven’t had a concrete example of that come up yet because I literally finished the book like four days ago. But my goal for using it is to try to be more objective and pulling off of data rather than my just past experiences and then try to use that.

MJ:

Makes sense. I’ve heard interesting things about that book. I’ve not read it, but I need to.

BS:

Yes, it is controversial. It starts in a much less controversial way and then uses that trust to make some controversial points, which we don’t have to get into. But it is, I think it’s worth a read for sure. And apparently he’s going to be the director of the FDA in Trump’s administration. I saw that.

NP:

Okay. I know who this is. Yeah. All right. I’m caught up now. I think, look, in many ways too, I totally understand that feeling of that, like, God, like, what are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? Nothing is real. At least not two of the three of us are recommending Marlboros. Like, you know, so there’s like, I always have like some, like, I feel like we’re at least standing on the shoulders of a great deal of science and good thought though. That often helps me when I slink into these like—

Crippling on wheeze. Frankly, especially, I’ll speak to it, such in pediatrics, don’t know if Michael, you still feel this like far less data driven and far more expert opinion driven. And especially when you get into like novel or esoteric diseases, there’s, you know, maybe six people in the country that treat these certain things. You’re like, do this. You’re like, okay, I don’t like this at all. So it’s, it comes up pretty, unfortunately, pretty frequently. I don’t know if Michael still gets that quite a bit, but the—

MJ:

I mean, it’s funny you say that you brought up the peanut thing, right? I mean, talk about not being data driven and people like, let’s be data driven about this thing. And they did the study and like, actually this is wrong.

NP:

We’re exactly wrong. Yeah. We’re never using data again. We hate this feeling.

MJ:

This has been great. I know you’re a busy man, we will let you go. But I was going to see for our audience, educate them on where they can find you online.

BS:

Yeah, no, absolutely. So I have platforms across most of the big social media platforms. So on YouTube as Doc Schmidt, on Instagram, Doc Schmidt IG, on X or Twitter Schmidt Doc. And then if TikTok is still around, Doc Schmidt. And then my website is DocSchmidt.org, where I have some of my favorite videos and some educational tidbits for patients and for providers. And if you like fun, silly children’s books, I have a children’s book called The Night Before Med School that is available on Amazon.

MJ:

That is amazing. I didn’t realize the book. We’re definitely gonna promote that. I love that.

NP:

We gotta re-record your bio now. Go back to the beginning. Mean, published children’s book author, Doc Schmidt. This is incredible.

MJ:

That’s so cool.

BS:

Thank you. Yeah, so it’s a little project I did adapted one of my videos into a book basically about two years ago at this point.

MJ:

Well, Dr. Schmidt, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us today. It was very, very fun. So I appreciate you. I’m sure we’ll talk soon.

BS:

Of course. Thank you. Yeah, it was great guys. Thanks for having me on. Good to see you.

NP:

Thank you. Good to see you.

MJ:

Thank you for joining us on another episode of the podcast for Doctors by Doctors. You can catch us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and all the other major podcasting platforms. If you enjoyed this episode or learned anything here today, please take a moment to give us a rating and subscribe so that you don’t miss a single episode release. As always, thanks for listening. And the next time you see a doctor, maybe you should prescribe this podcast. See you next time.

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