Given the societal expectations that burden the existence of millennials, Ethan Robert Gary Smallwood managed to do something productive. Many young people choose to use Instagram and other social media platforms as a way for quick money and fame. On the other hand, healthcare influencer Doctor Ethan as he is known, wanted to use these platforms to benefit other people and the healthcare profession.
In his Instagram account where he aims to become a prominent medical voice,he shares his experiences of medical school alongside enticing pictures from his various holidays in New York, Dubai, and Thailand with his 100k+ Insta community. So what persuaded him to discover his calling in medicine? He says, “Medicine was an easy career to choose. I had always excelled at sciences from secondary school and I was fascinated by how the human body was so complex. Furthermore, becoming a doctor is such a rewarding profession; being able to help vulnerable and sick patients every day and improve their quality of life is such a privilege, the variety in medicine is unrivaled, being able to work with hundreds of conditions from genetic disorders to cancers and working with athletes to the elderly and newborns.”
Millennials across the globe have acquired a reputation of being lethargic, sluggish, and unproductive as per senior and experienced medical professionals. Numerous surveys have proven that millennials are constantly addicted to their phones and discussing their party experiences. But young medical professionals like Ethan believe, that while enticing social life pictures on Instagram does make for great content, social media can also be deployed to create awareness about existing medical practices and enlighten users about the best choices to make.
Traditionalists also believe that millennials are adopting a different and sometimes regarded as lazy perspective towards work.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Professor Ian Cumming, Chief Executive of Health Education, England, said the attitudes of millennials were very different from previous generations, with a much bigger focus on maintaining the work-life balance. He opines, “When it comes to millennials it is a different picture - wanting to work more flexibly, less than full time, to take career breaks, taking a gap year when they have been working for a few years, and so on.”
However, on the contrary, a study conducted by Darcy Reed, MD,Senior Associate for Academic Affairs at the University of Calgary's Cumming School of Medicine, believes that the millennial generation is displaying additional needs for perfectionism, transparency, rules and emotional stability, resulting in less self-reliance.
Alexandra Wolanskyj from Mayo Clinic School of Medicine adds that millennials are extremely social-minded and inspired to serve patients.
Pursuing a Bachelors’ Degree in Medicine and Surgery, which he is likely to complete by 2021, Ethan Smallwood isworking predominantlyfrom the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham.
As a medical influencer, he hopes to change the perspective of his peers so that more of them are tempted into the field of medicine while educating them on the key issues related to health and disease.
