The social media tricks you need to steal from Dr. Natasha

**Dr. Natasha Burgert is a pediatrician based in Overland Park, Kansas who uses digital media channels to promote child health and wellness, by offering practical advice to parents. She posts long-form advice on everything from fevers and kids who are afraid of needles, to introducing solids on her blog/Substack. Her Instagram account is full of timely (& sometimes downright hilarious) information for parents on everything from what you need to know about RSV, to what to do during the current amoxicillin shortage. Dr. Natasha agreed to sit with us and talk about life as a doctor during the pandemic, and her approaches to social & digital strategy.  Spoiler alert: she also shares her sage advice for anyone in a not-traditionally creative or digitally savvy realm, and it’s some of the best we’ve heard in a *long* time. 

What follows is a lightly edited and condensed version of our discussion.** 

How has it been for you as a pediatrician in the last few years? I assume it's very different from the previous, 15 or 20? 

Very different. Pediatrics had a really unique kind of course through 2020 to 2021. And I think it hit pediatricians in much different ways than it did the adult sector. When we first learned about the virus that causes Covid, it was very clear at the beginning that it did not affect kids [the same as it did adults]. We were so thankful for that. But then when lockdown started and school shut down and extracurriculars stopped and travel stopped, that's how illness is spread. With kids being home and sequestered, our office census dropped to nearly zero. I would go to work some days and I would see one patient and that one patient was so terrified to come and see me. With the news that was happening in other parts of the country and other parts of the world, I think parents really felt like the doctor's office was a dangerous place. The hospital was a dangerous place. And in many cases, I think that they were correct. But I don't think that they realized we were not seeing patients, kids were not getting sick cuz they were not around each other. 

We went through not only as individuals, but as business owners and hospital systems, this very weird transition where we had to be prepared for this impending emergency that we were all kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. But in the meantime we were just trying to keep our businesses alive just like everybody else, because we had no patients to come and see us. So it was a very interesting time. Now that of course has completely now turned upside down as, as things do as pendulums do swing. And now, for the last six months we've been busier than we've ever been. Even pre-2019 because not only are we catching up kids for wellness visits that they've never come in for, but now we're dealing with this horrendous early arrival of RSV and flu and these other viruses that were suppressed. Our local hospital here in Kansas City was closed for a couple days because they had no beds available. It’s all been very stressful. 

We’ve followed you on social media for years, and it seems like you communicate a lot with your patients directly but also with a broader community. Can you talk to me about the inspiration behind that? 

I started working in social almost a decade ago. When I first started, there were no Facebook Business pages. Oh my gosh, I'm aging myself. (laughs) But I was friending patients in a private group so that I could connect with them and share information that was reputable between checkups – which is totally taboo now. But at the time it was just like, well, this is a tool I can use to be able to share good information. I was just so thankful that I did have a social platform because when patients were not coming in during the initial 2020 lockdowns, I felt like it was an opportunity for me to talk to my patients and let them know really what was going on from a trusted source. 

Are you the same person on social media as you are in your office? 

My heart and soul and my passion is still full-time pediatric clinical care in a suburban private practice. Seeing patients face to face. That's what I do, that’s my life blood. So my digital presence is just an extension of that. I really communicate to my patients, to my tribe that I know that I'm seeing. I can continue that conversation in the office or virtually even though I'm not seeing them every day. It is my full-time job to see these families. I know the questions they ask. I know what they're worried about. I know where they live. That's who I speak to. And if other people wanna join in and listen, I'm happy to have them join the conversation too, which is one of the amazing things about social. But my primary purpose has always just been to speak to my own families. 

What’s your main goal in speaking to them? 

My goal is always to try to translate or simplify information. I think at the end of the day, one of the most common questions I get in the office is if it was your kid, what would you do? Certainly it's my opinion and I try to make that as clear as I can on those [digital] channels, but I think parents appreciate having at least one opinion that is reasonably decisive.

How do you think your patients benefit from your approach to social & digital? 

Parents can get really anxious and overwhelmed when they're worried about their kids and start doing these internet deep dives. I help my families by having a few words of comfort and a common sense approach to minimize the anxiety that Googling your child's symptoms or problems can bring. I'm very attuned to that problem and I think that that's one way that I can be part of the solution. And it’s an unfair problem that I think parents have right now. In my long form content, on my website, I try to create a resource of very practical, simple things for families so they can hopefully not go down so many rabbit holes. I totally get that, by the way, when your kids are sick, it preoccupies your mind. 

Do you have any support in running your accounts or is it just you? 

No, it’s just me! And social augments my practice, it's not my primary job. I've come to terms with the fact that that social for me is going to be adjunct to what's happening to me in the clinic, and I'm less inclined to be stressed out if I don't post every day or if I take a hiatus week. Especially in the last two years, I've had to make my own boundaries for social, because when you put 1 thing out you get 10 things back in the comments or DMs – and I want to help. But that can be very challenging, especially because I’m doing all my own stuff. It’s just me sitting on my couch whenever I have time (laughs). 

How has your work in digital benefitted you? 

The reason that I kept using social media for all of these years when so many of my colleagues tried and quit so quickly was I like to prep, and I use social a lot of times not only to educate, but also to prep families for the visit. If I can do three or four Instagram posts or a long form piece about all your questions about the flu shot, or “Here's what's going on for this year,” – this is reflecting the questions that I'm hearing in the office, and here are all the answers. Then when patients come to me for their well check in, they say “Okay, I read your post about the flu shot. I have one follow up question,” and then I give my answer and then they get the shot. Writing that piece or doing that Reel often will save me time in the clinic. If you can give that education or answer that question or get a patient in the right frame of mind to anticipate that this is a conversation that we're gonna have, then they can come into the office better prepared. They have a good framework of where I'm standing, and we're coming to the exam table at a more equal place of what my opinion is, and what their questions are. It just makes that conversation about potentially a very complex topic much more conversational and patient focused– and both of us are more satisfied with the visit. 

Did you have any communications training before you became a pediatrician? Before you got dabbling into the early days of Facebook private groups with your patients? 

No, I did not. Our class – from medical school, residency – was one of the first transitional classes where I was taught a very traditional role of the physician. When I started my practice, I was one of the first pediatricians that people were bringing in articles from WebMD or whatever it was at the time, and saying, “I think my kid has Hoochiemagucci disease.” And I would ask “Where would you even find this information?” And then when I started my practice, I realized that Google was also in the room, but I was never trained to have Google in the room. So it was a lot of reacting to what was happening and then realizing that I could add my voice and part of the solution to the chaos that digital is creating. Now obviously this escalated quickly over the last decade because it's used so differently now. But essentially, at the core it was just trying to solve a problem. I did go back to school during the pandemic, and I got a certification of medical writing from Harvard Medical School last year. That has helped me focus my long form, and helped my communication. But now, it's so busy in the office, I haven't had any time to use these new skills. (laughs)

What advice do you have for someone who is not in a traditionally digital savvy job? Like a pediatrician, for how they might want to use digital and social to their benefit? 

In the medical field, we're very privileged to have a lot of knowledge about a very interesting subject that we assume is very normal. Just like my accountant, right? Or just like my mechanic. Their daily work is so complex and interesting and I have no idea about it. So sharing just what you may think is very basic and mundane can really be helpful to families who are trying to answer a question or have a problem with one of their family members or themselves, and they're looking for advice. I think that when people approach social or when they ask me about social, they make it so complex or so niche that it almost makes it too hard. The goal is just to keep the content simple enough to reflect the population that you're serving. 

I also think it's important to think of it as a long game – especially with the way that algorithms work, they're not on our side. Also, the most successful people on any platform, whether it is a long-form, whether it's podcasting, whether it's on in or TikTok or whatever you like to use, they have fun with it. It's an enjoyable product for them to consume. Then they're going to be effective creators there. People have been bugging me for the last two years to get on TikTok. I don't like TikTok, I don't like looking at it, I don't like participating with it. I don't feel engaged with it. My daughter does, but I don't like it. I don't want to be there – and I don't have to be. It’s just finding places that you like to use and adding value to the places you already like to live.