Beware of social media celebrity doctors and aestheticians!

Beware of social media celebrity doctors and aestheticians

Social media occupies more and more space in our lives every day. We spend a lot of time on social media for professional reasons or for no reason at all. We can clearly see this from the analytics provided by the platforms or the screen time reports our phones show us.

According to data I obtained a few months ago, our average daily screen scrolling distance in Turkey is 169 meters. To give an example from my own life, I spend about 5.5 hours a day looking at a screen for professional reasons. Naturally, this situation leads to deep changes and influences in our lives.

Recently, especially on Instagram, we see people from various professions engaging in personal promotion efforts through accounts with high follower counts. However, there are serious risks here. Turkish people do not hesitate to trust the people they see on the screen. While this used to be the case for people appearing in newspapers, it has now become the case for popular accounts we encounter on social media. This is a big mistake. Because we live in a country where those who commit fraud more easily because they are famous exist.

Social media has become a guiding force in many areas, from daily life to education, from health to politics. Individuals and institutions are now evaluated based on their follower counts and digital appearances. Especially in the health sector, this is a major warning sign. We frequently come across posts by aesthetic experts or doctors. Doctors act more like "showmen" than doctors; some make jokes, some try to gather followers with staged videos.

Of course, in difficult living conditions, the importance of recognition is great; people are trying to hold onto life. But what needs to be paid attention to here is not to get carried away by popularity and make wrong choices. In a field like health, where merit must never be compromised, a doctor having a high number of followers does not mean they are a very good physician. Professions like medicine should gain meaning not through visibility, but through merit, experience, and moral values.

At this point, I am reminded of "Armless Agop," whom we lost in recent years and of whose existence I was aware hundreds of times, even though I did not have the opportunity to meet him in person. He was one of Turkey's legendary dermatologists. In the era before social media, his name was known for his meticulousness, his expertise in his field, and his unique approach to every patient. His fame was so great that even those who did not know him or were not treated by him were aware of his existence; just like me.

In short; social media users now live in an "age of attention." We have to be more careful. One should not be deceived by popularity. Because popularity is not equal to success and experience. Being popular does not mean being experienced.

We have to question, research, and approach with skepticism. As journalists, we also frequently witness the negatives in the health sector. There are people in this country, and even in the world, who have lost their lives for the sake of becoming more beautiful. Perhaps they made such choices by being influenced by a video they encountered on social media.

It should not be forgotten that the consequences of wrong choices are severe.