Win poor health Flanary’s days are spent conducting eye exams and cataract surgical procedures at a non-public observe outdoors Portland, Ore. The evenings are for household, and a standing dedication to make dinner for his spouse and two daughters. That leaves nights and weekends for the ring gentle, the iPhone, and Flanary’s alter ego, an web movie star often called Dr. Glaucomflecken.
Flanary, 36, has about 2.5 million subscribers throughout TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter, the place his pointed satire of medication’s many absurdities has ballooned right into a forged of characters and a cottage trade. Flanary’s escalating reputation is all of the extra notable as a result of his jokes, delivered in brief skits, plumb the inane depths of American well being care. The specificity is by design, Flanary mentioned, giving his friends one thing to narrate to and a rising viewers of outsiders one thing to chortle at.
“That’s why I like constructing this Glaucomflecken Basic Hospital of characters,” Flanary informed STAT. “I might be fairly particular with totally different areas of medication and create this world of, actually, fairly dysfunctional individuals. But it surely’s humorous.”
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There’s the lackadaisical emergency drugs physician, eternally clad in biking gear. There’s the nice and cozy however disconcertingly studious pediatrician, the charmingly alarmist dermatologist, the meatheaded orthopedic surgeon, and Jonathan, the loyal medical scribe whose dedication borders on sociopathy.
Every is deployed as a comedic foil for no matter level Flanary needs to make, whether or not a high-minded critique of prior authorization or a farcical look at how residency works. And every submits to a few minutes of Jungian analysis, care of the workers psychiatrist. Flanary is author, director, editor, and star, with the everyday sketch foisting two or extra of his characters into an instructively maddening state of affairs that resolves with a punchline and maybe some music, all in about 90 seconds.
Flanary is hardly alone amongst docs with TikTok accounts. However not like the numerous debunkers, explainers, and self-promotional plastic surgeons who populate the platform, Flanary’s major concern is with making individuals chortle.
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That may be a difficult proposition. The tradition of medication is notoriously conservative, and docs’ social media accounts have a tendency towards the robotic. Alternatively, some physicians’ makes an attempt at white-coat comedy have veered into questionable jokes at patients’ expense.
“What I feel [Flanary] does effectively basically — and maybe why he’s by no means been canceled — is that his humor is usually one among two issues: healthful, or relatable to everyone throughout the medical group,” mentioned Sarah Mojarad, who teaches a course on social media for docs and scientists on the College of Southern California. “These are issues medical college students have skilled, that residents have skilled — it’s all relatable.”
Flanary mentioned he needs his friends to see themselves in his satire, “to come back away feeling like any person understands.” However he additionally hopes poking enjoyable on the career would possibly assist nudge docs away from what generally is a monastic self-regard.
“There’s this prevailing notion which you can’t do the issues I’m doing on social media as a result of it’s not skilled,” he mentioned. “You’ll be able to’t inform jokes. You’ll be able to’t discuss in regards to the issues that you’ve in your job with out sacrificing professionalism. And what I’ve realized is that that’s not the case in any respect. Folks need the alternative. Folks need their docs to appear like actual people who find themselves relatable.”
Flanary, initially from Houston, has been a practising comic longer than he’s had a medical license. He began doing stand-up, “the toughest factor on the planet,” whereas in school at Texas Tech College. That led to writing for the college’s satirical journal, and Flanary contributed to GomerBlog, a type of medical analog to The Onion, by way of his coaching in ophthalmology.
That mixed dedication to studying the within particulars of medication whereas practising the outsider artwork of satire would possibly clarify what makes Dr. Glaucomflecken work. Flanary’s finest materials balances the specificity of an knowledgeable with the nostril for hypocrisy that sometimes comes from an incisive observer, mentioned Heidi Tworek, a College of British Columbia historical past professor who research well being communication.
“He does this very intelligent mixture of explaining some advanced issues clearly and humorously,” Tworek mentioned. “It’s this candy spot of demystification and comedy concurrently.”
Like many issues involving TikTok, the Dr. Glaucomflecken phenomenon was born out of boredom. It was the spring of 2020, and the nascent Covid-19 pandemic had shuttered companies across the nation, together with Flanary’s personal observe.
His idle palms first turned to Twitter, the place he’d amassed some 100,000 followers as @DGlaucomflecken, borrowing the German time period for a glaucoma symptom as a result of he wished “essentially the most ridiculous phrase I may consider in ophthalmology.” However quickly he “wasn’t discovering it as a lot of a problem” to be humorous by way of textual content. And Twitter, a web site on which the rhetorical distance between “I disagree with you” and “you have to be put in jail” might be alarmingly brief, was turning into a little bit of a drag. Then he discovered TikTok.
“I checked it out and it appeared good,” Flanary mentioned. “A brief format, very simple to edit and shoot, and it will work on my schedule. I may assault all these subjects that I’d been discussing on Twitter simply with boring phrases, however now I may method it otherwise and do one thing new.”
His early work was squarely within the lingua franca of the platform: brief, comedic movies synced to well-liked songs. In a clip posted April 9, 2020, he squints, scowls, and grins into the digital camera to clarify the numerous muscle tissues of the face, all with the help of Megan Thee Stallion. Issues would regularly get a little bit extra pointed, with jokes on the expense of disinterested emergency medicine doctors, overeager medical students, and, in a operating theme, well-paid and under-worked ophthalmologists.
Every acquired a couple of thousand views and a few enthusiastic feedback, however Flanary’s ascent to TikTok stardom would come solely after a brush with demise.
On the night time of Could 11, 2020, his coronary heart went haywire. Flanary suffered a type of cardiac arrest referred to as ventricular fibrillation, wherein the center’s decrease chambers flutter erratically, reducing off the move of blood to the remainder of the physique. Left untreated, it’s a minutes-long prelude to demise. Flanary is alive as a result of his spouse, Kristin, observed his irregular respiratory and carried out CPR till an EMT may arrive and shock his coronary heart again into common perform.
After a three-day ICU keep, Flanary can be fitted with a short lived defibrillator, endure surgical procedure to get a everlasting one, and — most essential for his comedy — navigate the hellish actuality of American medical insurance.
In his first video to get greater than 1 million views, posted that July, Flanary performs two roles: the flabbergasted affected person saddled with an enormous invoice, and the unnervingly calm customer support consultant explaining that if he had merely chosen an in-network physician whereas he was unconscious, all of this might have been averted.
It was a clarifying second for Flanary as a creator, convincing him to ditch TikTok’s de rigueur music syncopation and embrace what he was good at: crafting characters and writing jokes. And the outsized response taught him that a little bit righteous indignation can go a good distance with an viewers. Getting greater than 1 million views turned the norm.
“It actually did kick off with the insurance coverage issues,” Flanary mentioned. “I noticed, ‘Oh there’s an enormous urge for food for this. This resonates with lots of people.’”
Over the following months, he’d set his sights on the idiosyncrasies of medical training, tutorial journals, and all of well being care’s many situations of “establishments preying on people who find themselves much less highly effective than them,” he mentioned. However Flanary had no illusions that the world wished to listen to self-serious rants from a private-practice doctor within the Pacific Northwest, so he made his factors one of the best ways he knew how: making up characters and writing jokes at their expense.
The Glaucomflecken repertory theater started to develop. The characters bounce off each other, both as an example some irksome side of medication or just to be the butt of a joke. They’re additionally put to make use of in Flanary’s tried-and-true format, courting again to the insurance coverage video: pithy clips wherein an inexpensive individual encounters a preposterous system, and comedy ensues.
Flanary isn’t terribly involved that his caricatures will ruffle feathers amongst his friends, partly as a result of he’s by no means far faraway from a joke on the expense of his personal specialty. Every time he’s unsure whether or not a given joke would possibly go too far, he refers to a easy guideline: Be sure you punch up.
“I all the time make it possible for the thing of ridicule is obvious,” Flanary mentioned. The well being care system is laden with energy dynamics, “and sufferers are on the backside,” he mentioned, “so I ought to by no means be perceived as making enjoyable of sufferers, as a result of that’s not going to go OK.”
When issues get a little bit extra sophisticated, “what it comes right down to for me is: Do I consider that my ridicule of one thing is justified?” he mentioned. “And I belief myself. However sooner or later you simply should go for it. You need to do it and reside by way of the implications.”
Being humorous was all the time meant to be a pastime somewhat than a vocation, however the surging reputation of Dr. Glaucomflecken has became a enterprise in its personal proper. Flanary declined to reveal his comedy revenue, however he will get advert income from YouTube, and he’s recording three or 4 Cameo movies an evening at $180 a pop.
He’s additionally beginning to suppose greater. Merchandise is in growth, and he’s plotting a solution to translate what works on TikTok right into a longer-form episodic format. That doubtless means tv, whether or not live-action, animation, or some mixture thereof. The thought is in “the very early levels,” Flanary mentioned, however he’s been working with an outdoor agency to press issues ahead.
The query is simply how massive his viewers may be — and whether or not what works on-line can translate to a different medium. Sarah Cooper, a comic who rose to web stardom by lip-syncing to President Trump, parlayed her success right into a 2020 Netflix particular that was not significantly well-received, after which the election got here and went alongside together with her second.
Flanary is keen to take the gamble. Dr. Glaucomflecken’s success so far was unimaginable again within the spring of 2020. Who’s to say what 2024 would possibly deliver? And moreover, even when all of it blows up, he nonetheless will get to be a health care provider.
“I’m lucky to have this good job that offers me a pleasant dwelling that’s all the time there,” he mentioned. “So this all feels actually low-stakes. I really feel like I can simply strive this stuff and see the place it takes me.”
