When Serv Wahan opens Instagram, his feed populates with pictures of area of interest medical devices and surgical procedure movies cloaked with sensitive-content warnings. And when considered one of his followers opens theirs, they may see precisely these issues posted by Wahan himself. Along with working as an oral surgeon, Wahan has garnered a big following on social media. You would say he’s a dental influencer—maintain the lip-synching and skits, although.
One video began all of it: In a dental Fb group, the Seattle-raised DMD and MD shared a distinct segment most cancers discover that had been referred to him for a biopsy, zooming in on a picture exhibiting a slight tongue discoloration that turned out to be squamous cell carcinoma. He threw some music behind the video and (with the affected person’s consent) despatched it out to the web. The response was overwhelming, as different medical professionals weighed in and shared.
This was after Covid hit, when watercooler chats had moved on-line as communities shifted digital. Earlier than Covid, Wahan had taught third- and fourth-year dental college students in lecture halls on the College of Washington Faculty of Dentistry. He shifted a few of these would-be classes to Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, the place a broader viewers of dental and medical professionals, college students, and even the curious, not-easily-grossed-out normal public might be a part of the dialog.
It takes a full dental diploma to essentially admire Wahan’s posts: principally close-up movies of very particular procedures, with a top level view of the methods used. Lots of the feedback come within the type of technical follow-up questions from fellow dental professionals.
For Serv Wahan, podcasting is a inventive outlet.
Positive, the movies have the requisite blood and bones, however “it’s not only a bunch of shock and awe for individuals. It’s academic,” Wahan says. His 42,000-plus Instagram followers are “principally dentists, specialists within the dental area,” Wahan notes, along with college students or on a regular basis individuals who discover a peek behind the dentistry curtain to be cool.
He follows different docs and dentists himself, increasing his skilled neighborhood and studying potential past the opposite 4 oral surgeons he works alongside within the workplace. He’ll usually come throughout a brand new approach or device and fireplace off a fast message: “‘Oh, what instrument is that?’…And so they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, right here’s a hyperlink for what I take advantage of,’” Wahan says.
His latest venture capitalizes on that spirit of collaboration in an extended format than social media might muster. In 2024 he launched a podcast, and episodes have run the gamut: widespread medical emergencies in dental settings, sedation considerations with redheads (who could require extra anesthesia) and hashish customers, or the nitty-gritty on how you can deal with jaw dislocations.
Wahan describes the podcast as his “inventive outlet,” the place he can dive deep into a subject that pursuits him, or one thing new he examine in a journal. His day job extracting knowledge tooth or treating facial trauma (“Jaw fractures, lacerations, baseballs to the face, bats to the face, steering wheel, windshield, no matter it’s,” he says. “We get a number of dog-walking accidents. Folks stroll their canines, after which they journey.”) lends him countless inspiration.
If all else fails, he can all the time pluck a subject from his DMs.
