In February alone, Dr Glaucomflecken released nine installments of his ongoing 60-second video series, in which a hapless medical student is thrown into the deep end by various specialists, from an elbow-patched psychiatrist to a mountain-biking emergency medicine doctor. "Believe it or not, a lot of doctors are not good at making fun of themselves," he says. Thankfully, his wife was able to perform CPR until the paramedics arrived and they were able to resuscitate him. Flanary has loved medicine almost as long as he has loved making people laugh. And each submits to a few minutes of Jungian analysis, care of the staff psychiatrist. Flanary is hardly alone among doctors with TikTok accounts. He registered for a Twitter account out of boredom while attending a conference several years ago during medical school and began using it as a surrogate for telling jokes on stage. Here, Dr. Flanary shares some of his experience. Babe Ruth, Serena Williams, and Michael Jordan competing at their peaks. Q: Why do you think its become such a hit, particularly for people outside the medical world? Flanary is willing to take the gamble. Welcome back to the Doctor Rich channel! We still dont know the cause. "For me, it was basically, I went to bed and I woke up in the ICU wearing a gown and no underwear like three days later," Flanary says. He added: 'No one knows your testicles better than you, more than likely. Eleanor Cummins is a freelance journalist whose work runs the gamut of science. Three days later, he woke up in an ICU bed, recovering from a cardiac arrest. Let's put an end of burnout. William E. Flanary is an American comedian and ophthalmologist who performs under the stage name Dr. Glaucomflecken. Thankfully, Dr Glaucomflecken has a prescription for that. I hope to remind them of the importance of compassionate care. A roundup of STAT's top stories of the day. We really enjoy sitting down. Since then, it has evolved to incorporate satire of the US healthcare system, academic publishing, and the interpersonal conflicts that are pervasive in the medical system. I can be pretty specific with different areas of medicine and create this world of, honestly, pretty dysfunctional people. 'The second time was much harder,' he admitted. How Dr Glaucomflecken Overcame Death to Get Internet Laughs, ED Doc Fired for COVID Tweets Talks to Biden, Returns to Job, Med Student's Cardiac Crisis a COVID-Era Medical Mystery, 'You Are the Heroes,' Comedians Tell Clinicians. Another video depicts a patient agreeing without hesitation to a full body CT scan, lumbar puncture, colonoscopy, brain biopsy, and an experimental surgery where we replace your spleen with a second liver.. 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[Physically] I recovered just fine, Dr. Glaucomflecken said. For Flanary, comedy comes naturally. From his home in Portland, Ore., Flanary, who served as the Yale Medical School commencement speaker this year, talked about finding humor in the everyday, what he hears from other doctors and his side hack as a Cameo star. Who are these people?" People want their doctors to seem like real people who are relatable.. Get app. They don't care.". Don't have time to read this post? That led to writing for the schools satirical magazine, and Flanary contributed to GomerBlog, a sort of medical analog to The Onion, through his training in ophthalmology. "That's kind of the way it works with me with humor.. But its a minority most people are just fine with it. A: Humor is how I process grief and tragedy in my life. Severe Weather According to reports, only one to two per cent of testicular cancer survivors develop it again in the other testicle - but he was unfortunately one of those survivors. So he turned to the internet. But its funny.. They think that by portraying the character that way, Im dissuading people from entering that field, which I dont buy for a second. "I went the much easier route of becoming a doctor." "Medicine is full of absurdity," he says. Check it out: Whats the difference between heart attack and sudden cardiac arrest? Your membership will automatically continue for 199/month after the first 30 days, and you can cancel anytime. And then theres ophthalmology, where I get to sit down to operate. You must declare any conflicts of interest related to your comments and responses. It was the juxtaposition between my previous rotation, which was vascular surgery, where youre standing for like six-hour cases, holding the retractor and you have really sick patients. But mainly, the young, mellow-voiced doctor focuses on the strong personalities involved in everyday medical practice. Daily Briefing Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Community Guidelines | KRDO Jobs | FCC Applications |, KRDO FCC Public File | KRDO FCC Applications, Breaking News Please use this form to submit your questions or comments on how to make this article more useful to clinicians. I feel like I can just try these things and see where it takes me.. The account is named after glaukomflecken, a sign of acute angle-closure glaucoma. Honestly, it's surreal. There was no medical explanation for the sudden cardiac arrest. If the IOP remains elevated long enough, glaucomatous optic neuropathy may occur, resulting in primary angle closure glaucoma. "I got on to see, where are you all the time? EMS1: NAEMSP 2023 Quick Take: Wife or Death. Through my stories, I hope to make a difference. (He has joked, "It's so easy even an ophthalmologist can do it.") But five years later, in 2015, he discovered a lump on his other testicle. Then all of a sudden, it just comes crashing down on you.'. [8] As of June 2022, his Twitter account had over 573,000 followers, and his TikTok account had over 1.5 million followers and over 58 million total likes. His gasp for breath woke up his wife, who performed CPR for 10 minutes until paramedics arrived and resuscitated him, according to an interview with Today. The Glaucomflecken repertory theater began to grow. "He's not very talkative, believe it or nothe's an introvert, he's pretty private, pretty independent," she says. On TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, Flanary posts videos several times a week for more than 1.6 million followers about the medical system. "What delights me to no end is people who think my actual name is Dr Glaucomflecken," Flanary says. Private events across all areas of medicine. Hctor Garca, Written by: His pandemic content on vaccinations have garnered the most negative response but he tries not to pay too much attention to the angry comments and messages, he says. Q: You made a video in March about Match day, where medical students match into residency, basically cementing their medical specialty. Q: I watched some reaction videos from doctors. Learn More His idle hands first turned to Twitter, where hed amassed some 100,000 followers as @DGlaucomflecken, borrowing the German term for a glaucoma symptom because he wanted the most ridiculous word I could think of in ophthalmology. But soon he wasnt finding it as much of a challenge to be funny via text. So the ophthalmologist, who moonlights as a comedian on social media, knows well the importance of laughter as a prescription for coping with bad news. with the Glaucomfleckens. "It was such a powerful thing for me, and I saw the good it does for me and the people I do that trip with," he says. Whatever you want us to talk about, well be sure to make it engaging and leave your audience laughing. Turns out, I was having agonal breaths, which are a sign of cardiac arrest. But I still know what comedy is. Since 2016 he has become well known for making and uploading medical satire skits on Twitter, TikTok and YouTube.[2]. I had an excellent medical team, and my family also played a big part in my recovery. In his fourth year of med school, after an "awful" vascular surgery rotation where he was on his feet for hours at a time, draped in lead, Flanary took an ophthalmology elective. Feb 10 2023 Length: 39 mins Podcast Listen for free View show details Summary Today for our 100th episode, Asif and Ali welcome back one of their most popular guests, Will Flannary aka social media star Dr. Glaucomflecken. Ciara Conlon, Written by: ". Oregon ophthalmologist Will Flanary, better known in social media circles as his comedic alter ego Dr. Glaucomflecken, recounted his May near-death cardiac arrest experience and the heroic efforts of the 9-1-1 dispatcher, Flanary's wife, and the responding EMS crew who worked to revive him. He described the diagnosis as 'really hard' - especially since he was healthy and athletic at the time and didn't see it coming - and he recalled everything 'crashing down on him.'. For some reason, the powers that be thought it would be a good idea for my mom to teach her kid, who also happened to be the biggest class clown in school. "People have weaponized the term 'professionalism,'" he says, and use it to enforce impossibly high standards and inhuman behavior among healthcare providers. Doctors still don't know what caused his cardiac arrest in the first place. But cancer is not the only challenge Flanary has faced. Will Flanary, 36, who is anophthalmologist from Oregon City, Oregon, has not let his health problems bring him down. I checked it out and it seemed perfect, Flanary said. Flanary's recovery was quick, but he needed an outlet to process his experiences. "I wasn't really looking for a boyfriend or anything at the time," Kristin recalls. Related videos. He started with stand-up in high school, making "teenage boy jokes" wherever he could find an open mic. Power of Social Media with Family Physician Dr. Mike | Knock Knock, Hi! Q: I see that you are frequently hired on Cameo ($249) to send messages usually congratulations on medical school acceptance but also for wedding anniversaries. Anand Neelakantan, Little Things: Jab Dhruv Met Kavya, Season 1, Written by: Slowly, he regained consciousness. Flanary grew up in Houston, Texas. This is such a neat way for your fans to support your awesome comedy work, which the world needs more of! But everybody likes the TikTok where "Dr Daddy" Flanary in a red puffer jacket refers his 5-year-old daughter to debt collectors for failing to pay him for a $900 emergent splinter removal and Frozen Band-Aid application. Sometimes there is someone so good at something that there is universal agreement we are witnessing something special. How is that working out? She performed 10 minutes of CPR before EMS finally arrived. If I didnt find the humor in this awful situation, the gravity of it all would crush me. There are two things Ive always wanted to do in life: I started out as an amateur performing stand-up comedy in Houston, TX to sparsely attended comedy club open mics. And we are happy youre here because uh, we have a wonderful []. That can be a tricky proposition. But at some point you just have to go for it. Dr. Flanary is an ophthalmologist who specializes in satirizing the medical field with hilarious social media skits. Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. Life in one of the world's most isolated communities: Indigenous Canadian woman reveals it takes two days to get groceries from nearest town 338 miles away, there's only five hours of daylight in winter and no one has an address because it's so small, Student, 18, reveals she 'could have died' from toxic shock syndrome caused by falling asleep with a tampon in after hospital doctors dismissed her symptoms as 'Freshers Flu', Children's campaign group slams 'despicable' UK secondary school over letter telling parents that pupils who arrive without a mask will have to buy one or face being hauled out of lessons - branding it 'child abuse'. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. That's funny, but it's kind of my passion Let's check out this video! 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