While the fate of TikTok in the U.S. hangs in the balance of whether a U.S. buyer will purchase the popular short-form video app, imaging influencers and educators wait anxiously.
The U.S. Government banned TikTok on January 19, with the app becoming unavailable for use on the night of January 18. That ban lasted for about 12 hours until the app suddenly became available again for U.S. users. TikTok stated that it restored its services after receiving “necessary clarity and assurance” from President Donald Trump.
As part of a slew of executive orders signed on his first day in office, President Trump granted TikTok a 75-day delay in enforcing the ban. This grants time for TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to find a buyer in the U.S. The U.S. government issued the ban on TikTok due to security concerns.
While the app may be known for videos about dancing, beauty tips, cooking recipes, autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), and funny animals, influencers and educators in recent years have seized the opportunity to educate TikTok users about medical careers.
“The field [of radiology] would lose a lot of people signing up for programs and joining,” said Diego Diaz, a traveling radiologic technologist based in New York and New Jersey, who discussed the impact of a ban on TikTok. “Nowadays, it’s one of the biggest ways for people to find out about the field. Social media is part of today’s world; it’s what people look to when they try to find a piece of information.”
Diaz, who goes by the username “onedayyoumay,” has been posting videos on TikTok since March 2024 with the goal of educating medical students and fellow professionals about the various aspects of working as a radiologic technologist. His videos garner hundreds of thousands of views, sometimes going into the millions, and his account has nearly 79,000 followers.
His most-viewed video, a skit depicting how some patients may be claustrophobic when inside an MRI scanner, has nearly 54 million views.
“Every day, I probably receive 30 to 40 messages [from viewers]. And the comments go on all day,” Diaz said. “I try to respond to all the comments, so everyone can see and feed off that. There’s a lot of volume of people who are interested in the field because of TikTok.”
Diaz said that the benefits of TikTok, along with other social media sites, include attracting medical students to the workforce and providing instant, on-demand answers to medical questions that students and professionals may have.
“I feel like the short videos give [viewers] the answers straight ahead,” he said. “A lot of people have been researching jobs like radiologic technology, nursing, and medical careers. Influencers like myself have been putting out that information and tackling the problem of job shortages today.”
Another medical influencer on the app is Sally Choi, MD, a fourth-year neuroradiology resident at the University of Texas, San Antonio. She has been posting videos on TikTok since early 2021 when she was a fourth-year medical student.
“I always thought it would be fun and I’m still here,” Choi said.
Choi’s videos offer a slice-of-life approach about a day in the life of a radiologist. Her profile has over 203,000 followers and 27.6 million collective likes.
“I don’t consider [the video posts] educational. They’re very lighthearted,” she said. “I mostly share about my life and anything that includes my relationships and life as a resident. Now that I am further in my profession, one of my goals now…is putting my field out there for more people to see, especially for young women to see.”
Choi said it is a rewarding feeling when she gets messages or emails from viewers who say they are more interested in learning about radiology and radiologic technology.
“My first exposure to radiology was a lecture that a radiologist gave to my honors program when I was an honors student,” she said. “I was enamored and had never seen anything like it before. If I can do something similar in the eyes of more people, I think that’s really cool.”
Radiology researchers meanwhile have been exploring the utility of TikTok in medical education. A team led by Edmund Weisberg from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD, wrote in a 2022 editorial that the app warrants consideration for use in radiology education “as long as it is used with caution.”
“Educators can reach a substantial audience, especially those in the earliest stages of their medical education,” they wrote. “They can also instruct the general public, particularly on topics surrounding radiation exposure and symptoms of illness.”
A study published in 2021 outlined radiologists’ use of TikTok and wrote that the app could be beneficial to the field.
Marion Smits, who serves in executive roles for the European Society of Radiology (ESR), said in a 2024 AuntMinnieEurope.com interview that radiologists should make more use of social media, including TikTok.
“People sometimes look down a bit on TikTok by saying it’s for teenagers,” Smits said in the interview. “But there’s such fantastic content on TikTok. It’s fast-paced, it’s to-the-point, and I think we can reach so many people, not just radiologists, but also people outside of radiology like patients, policymakers, and fellow clinical partners.”
Diaz and Choi said that a permanent TikTok ban would close off a potential pipeline for medical students who may be interested in radiology.
“I didn’t realize how many people didn’t know about the field who wanted to do something like this,” Diaz said. “I remember being in their shoes and I wish somebody would have done what I’ve done as far as education on what the field is about.”
“Another benefit of these short-form videos being tied to profiles is that you can connect with the profile and find them on either the same social media platform or follow a link to a different platform to be able to message people like me and ask questions and have access to people in the field you wouldn’t normally have access to,” Choi noted.
The extension of the TikTok ban ends April 5. While potential buyers have shown interest in buying the app since the extension was granted, nothing has been finalized as of the time this article was published.