Dr. Glaucomflecken wants to make a stink

His real name is Will Flanary, but you probably know him as Dr. Glaucomflecken — the internet’s go-to doctor/comedian. On this episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” we talked about how he mixes humor with some of the most pressing issues facing health care, from misinformation on social media to the corporate takeover of medicine.

In particular, Flanary has been deeply involved with advocacy around PeaceHealth’s decision to use a corporate group to staff the emergency department in Eugene, Oregon, instead of the community-based physicians who had been there for more than 35 years.

“There's a lot people in hospital administration, in health insurance, in private equity, doing bad things for patients and for doctors. And one unifying characteristic of every story … is that they don't want people to know what's happening. They want to keep it out of the news,” he told me. “They don't want this kind of scrutiny because they know this is really unpopular and that maybe this isn't the best for patient care, but it's maybe good for pocketbooks, maybe good for other reasons that are not as altruistic.” By “making a stink” on social media, he said, he hopes he can bring scrutiny to those trying to avoid it.