Amy Pearlman, MD, discusses the importance of a digital footprint for physicians

In this video, Amy Pearlman, MD, discusses the importance of a digital footprint for physicians. Pearlman presented a talk at the 2024 Sexual Medicine Society of North America Fall Scientific Meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona titled “Building a Thriving Mens Health Practice from Scratch - Private Practice.” She is a urologist and co-founder of the Prime Institute in Coral Gables, Florida.

Transcription:

What strategies have you found to be most effective in marketing your practice?

The marketing piece was something that I never learned in training, and even though I sort of was involved in part of that within my first academic career outside of training, in my concierge private practice, that's a whole other sort of beast. So what do I do? I don't do it myself. I hired someone. We think about, being a co-founder of a business, a business owner, my goal is to ask myself, What am I good at? What do I like to do? What am I bad at, and what do I dread to do? I ask myself those questions. I figure out, what are the things that I'm actually going to do, and everything else, I find the best, and I hire them. One of the first things I did, even before I started my own practice, was I hired someone out of California to really help with the marketing.

How important is having a strong online presence for a men's health practice?

Having a digital footprint is one of the most important things we can do as health care providers, even outside of sexual medicine and even outside of having a men's health practice. I think specifically for men's health, as a woman in men's health, I think that creates a lot of barriers as well as opportunities. I started my YouTube channel several years ago, and what I learned from creating that channel and educational content is that—and I don't have research to support this, but this is my gestalt based on my patient interactions—there are a lot of men that would never see a woman as a men's health specialist, and I take no personal offense to that. The goal of me building my digital platform, was to show people what I look like, how I speak, what my content is. They can see the products I talk about. They can see what my passion is, and it allows them to decide for themselves whether or not that works for them. I know there are plenty of men that would have never seen a woman, and I know that some of those men have seen my content and they say, "I like that content. I want to see Pearlman, and then they schedule a visit. I know there are also plenty of people that have probably seen my content and maybe don't like what my age is, or they just don't like how I speak, or they don't like my messaging, or they're wondering, why does that person have so much passion for men's health, and may never call my office to schedule a visit. And you know what? I don't know who those people are. I take no personal offense, and my hope for those people is that they find a provider with whom they can truly feel comfortable having some of the most sensitive topics they will ever have in their entire lives.

So I think my message for other health care providers would be to ask themselves, how do they like to communicate? I don't think that every person needs to have a digital platform or needs to have a YouTube channel, or needs to have a blog. If people like to write, they should write blogs. If people like to be on video, they should make videos. And if people like to talk, then they should do podcasts. They don't have to do it all, or they can do it all, or a mix of the above. But I think it's people being honest with themselves with what they like to do and what they're good at, and getting feedback from other people to see, like, how do you think I come off on camera? I'll tell you, my sister the other day, we were doing a seminar in the community, and after the seminar, we always do a little debrief. And she said, "Amy, you're being a little aggressive. I need you to tone it down a little bit." And I didn't take personal offense to that, because I heard what she was saying, and I think she was probably right. I only had a couple of minutes to talk about genitourinary syndrome of menopause and topical therapies for women who are suffering from that. I was talking way too quickly, and I agree with her that I probably came off a little aggressive, but I think it's that feedback that I needed to hear, and that's important whenever we're building our strategies for communication.

This transcript was AI generated and edited by human editors.