Joseph Allen, OD, of Pine Cone Vision Center, in St. Cloud, Minn., says he grew up watching YouTube videos; after he became an OD, he noticed a lack of optometry patient education videos on the site and he decided to do something about it.

“I didn’t see anyone doing anything like this in eye care, and I thought I could be an ambassador for our profession,” he says. After posting his first video in 2018, he today has more than 200 videos on his channel (at www.youtube.com/@DoctorEyeHealth), including some with millions of views.

Here, he discusses the value of YouTube for patient education and advice for other ODs who wish to use the platform

PATIENT EDUCATION

While a YouTube channel is a lot of work, it’s worth it to help further patient education, Dr. Allen says.

“If you make a video on an evergreen topic, like astigmatism or glaucoma, that information doesn’t really change – you can use that for 10 or more years for patient education and advertisement for your clinic,” Dr. Allen says.

“We know patients sometimes only hear two words out of everything you say,” but a video gives them another opportunity to hear directly from you, he says.

HOW TO START A CHANNEL

For any other ODs looking to start their own channel, Dr. Allen recommends spending some time researching basic search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and how the YouTube algorithm works. There are plenty of YouTube videos that discuss these topics, he says, and it’s through other such tutorials that he says he taught himself how to edit his own videos (though his channel makes enough money that he can now hire a professional editor). Out of all the social media channels, Dr. Allen says, “I’ve found YouTube to be the best return on investment for your time.” OM