Dr. Sanjay K. Juneja is a triple board specialized physician who spent fourteen straight years to eventually be able to practice hematology and medical oncology in his hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. What he did not account for, however, was how heavily he would be sought after only a few years into practice for a field he had no formal training for at all creative consultation and brand marketing development in the health and med-tech space. In three short years into practice, Dr. Juneja is now speaking at national conventions, survivor conferences, and university classrooms across the country not just on the subject of cancer, but on what the power of every individual's voice can accomplish in the internet space we live in today.
Dr. Juneja is no stranger to leadership or innovation. He was elected President of his medical school at LSU Health Sciences center and was a co-founder of what is now the largest community service and volunteer organization at the institution known as Tiger Ambassadors. "At the time, every interest group or volunteer organization was field-specific. Surgery, medicine, radiology.. Why not have something that represents everyone as a whole? The world forces our hands as we grow older to sub-group and classify ourselves as it is, right? Conservative vs Liberal, academics vs private practice; all with their share of criticisms. It was later I found this was particularly the case when it came to what 'part' you fell into in healthcare–pharma vs physician vs administration." Dr. Juneja would use this thinking to ultimately change the way people thought about oncology and how they got their information.
It was during his chief fellow year in hematology and medical oncology that Dr. Juneja discovered the TikTok app. His wife had begun practicing oncology that year and she and their children were a four hour drive away that Dr. Juneja took every weekend in the year. But during the week, he posted a video or two to engage his 'right brain.' "The cool thing about Tiktok–at first, anyway is the anonymity. You can explore your right side of the brain to make content, and it just gets thrown into this nebulous pool of viewers, rather than people specifically like the case for other social media apps. That makes for a nice escape from the every-day stresses of medical training, what doctors are and are not supposed to do." Unfortunately for Dr. Juneja, that did not last long. He quickly started getting tens of thousands of followers for his dancing and humor, and the 'anonymity' he found faded away fast. "In Indian culture, we grow up believing in the importance of balance in the world. Good, bad, happiness, and grief there should be a balanced life of all of it. In this case, getting followers for simply personal content felt like the viewership was in vain. So I quickly felt the need to turn it into something that could be resourceful or valuable to the world, to balance out the still very flattering series of events that happened since posting that first video."
Productive it has been. Today, Dr. Juneja has over half a million followers presumably all interested in cancer across his social media platforms. Medical costs, new drugs, important screenings, and ways to support the oncology community are the highlights of just a few of his TikTok videos that teach viewers about the field of oncology. He demystifies an otherwise very misunderstood and intimidating field that is cancer. More than that, however, he feels compelled to keep not just patients but even other providers on the vast speed by which cancer and cancer treatments are growing, as well as the sometimes neglected field of hematology as it relates to blood work. "Little idiosyncrasies in your blood work can actually be way more telling than people realize. The little red and italicized values on your complete blood count that are randomly high or low? They mean something and are there for a reason. Most are not a big deal, but there are a handful that can catch otherwise very debilitating things if uncovered early enough."
What first started out as education and humorous anecdotes through his personal channels, soon became an example to many in the cancer industry as a novel strategy to reach people about important and impactful discoveries in the medical field. Community groups, novel non-chemo therapies, new indications for cancers, and startups aimed at making the world of cancer treatment more streamlined for patients have all repeatedly sought to Dr. Juneja for guidance given his expertise in reaching patients outside the conventional and saturated standard mediums. This has resulted in hundreds of patients learning of non-chemo options that have standard of care targeted options for their cancer resulting in better quality lives, but also too helped many gets reassurance and a deeper understanding of their or a family's journey with cancer that otherwise is hard to receive in communities where oncologists remain busy simply trying to assist those with new cancer diagnoses.
Many creators have come up in the past two years, in part due to the societal shifts enacted by the quarantine. Many have been and are doing what Dr. Juneja has been pursuing in their own fields. What is new and therefore a growing challenge for medical creators is how to navigate the cross-section of education and partnership with organizations and companies attempting to do the same. It was that need that inspired Dr. Juneja to team up with his good friend Dr. Adam Goodcoff, known as @seethemdlife on social media, to create a community and advisorship known as Medfluencers. Dr. Juneja to team up with his good friend Dr. Adam Goodcoff, known as @seethemdlife on social media, to create a community and advisorship known as Medfluencers. Medfluencers has taken national attention as it combines the minds and expertise of a hundred of the top creators that have been successful in the social media space, while also helping leverage the voices and ability of others fairly early into the space to maximize their contributions to their respective fields.
To check out Dr. Juneja's high-level topics in a most digestible and entertaining manner, you can find him on Instagram.
