🎙️ Why Camera Confidence Is a Skill HCPs Can Learn on Social Media (And What You Need to Know)

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• Many healthcare professionals were explicitly taught in med school to avoid social media, and that training is hard to unlearn

• Camera confidence isn’t innate; it’s built through reps, the same way any clinical skill is

• Judgment from peers says more about them than about the quality of your content

• You don’t need a big, extroverted personality to succeed on social media: you need to be yourself

• The simplest fix for camera anxiety: stop picturing an audience of thousands and picture one patient instead

🎧 Listen to Med Creator Minute: Confidence on Camera with Dr. Dustin Portela

If you were to ask a room full of healthcare professionals if they’d rather give a clinical presentation to their peers or post a 30-second video of themselves talking to a camera, most will pick the podium every time. Camera confidence is one of the most common barriers that come up for healthcare professionals considering getting active on social media, even for people who are completely comfortable speaking in front of colleagues, patients, or a packed conference room.

In this week’s Med Creator episode, Mimi and Dr. Portela share why the discomfort exists in the first place, how to get past it, and what to actually do the next time you sit down to film.

Mimi: Why are healthcare professionals so nervous about being visible online?

Dr. Portela: It usually comes down to training. Anyone who went through medical school in the last 8 to 15 years was likely told outright to stay off social media no profile, no photos, nothing a stranger could misread, because the early horror stories of posts going wrong were still fresh. That warning gets internalized deeply, even though the culture has shifted a lot for newer residents. There’s also a protectiveness that comes with being an HCP: years of training can make being publicly disagreed with feel riskier when your credibility is your livelihood. Being publicly disagreed with feels riskier when your credibility is your livelihood. That fear is real, but it’s also learnable to work through, which is exactly why we created a Camera Confidence module in the Med Creator 101 course.

Mimi: How did you personally get comfortable being on camera?

Dr. Portela: Honestly? I wasn’t comfortable, but I just started recording and posting anyway. My first videos were rough, and I cringe now watching them back. Camera confidence isn’t something you’re born with; it’s built through repetition, the same way any clinical skill is. Nobody’s first video is good. The instinct to wait until you feel naturally comfortable on camera is exactly what keeps most people from ever starting, because that comfort only comes after you’ve already put in the reps, not before. The advice is unglamorous but it works: sit down, record the video, post it, and let the feedback come. Simply posting something already puts you ahead of the vast majority of people who never will, regardless of how polished the result is.

Mimi: What would you say to people who are genuinely afraid of judgment or feedback?

Dr. Portela: Think about any academic conference. Some speakers at the podium are excellent, some aren’t, and it has nothing to do with whether they belong there. Skill level was never the price of admission for contributing. The same logic applies to social media: your audience there is a different crowd than your professional peers, and like any skill, ability improves the more you practice it. Judgment shouldn’t carry the weight it feels like it does in the moment and it’s worth considering that some of the harshest critics are dealing with quiet envy of their own. Beyond the fear, there are real stakes here too: content like this puts accurate medical information in front of people who might not have access to a doctor, or who are too embarrassed to ask their own doctor the question being answered for free. That’s worth the discomfort of being visible.

Mimi: What if someone is a great speaker at conferences but doesn’t think they have “the right personality” for social media?

Dr. Portela: There’s a common assumption that social media only works for big, loud, extroverted personalities. It’s not. Everyone already has a personality: the version that shows up in the exam room, the running jokes, the small quirks patients would recognize as distinctly theirs. That’s the personality worth bringing to camera, not some performed, louder version of themselves. Getting stiff and formal on camera, like a news anchor standing in an invisible box, is the opposite of what works. Plenty of successful healthcare creators lean introverted rather than extroverted: a camera with nobody else in the room is often far more comfortable than a podium in front of a live crowd, and that’s exactly why it can work for quieter personalities too.

Mimi: What’s one thing someone can do today to feel more comfortable on camera?

Dr. Portela: Stop imagining you’re broadcasting to the entire world, because you’re not. That mindset is exactly what makes people freeze up. Instead, pick one person in your head. Someone who looks a lot like the patients you see every single day. Look at the camera the way you’d look at that one person across an exam room. Forget that the video might eventually be seen by thousands of strangers; just have the conversation you’d have with a friend, or with a patient sitting in front of you. That shift alone changes everything. Content built to speak to “everyone” almost never lands with anyone in particular. Content built for one specific person is what actually makes people feel like you’re talking directly to them.

Camera confidence isn’t something you either have or don’t have; it’s built the same way clinical skill is: through repetition, through getting a little better each time, and through remembering who you’re actually trying to reach.

🎧 Listen to Med Creator Minute: Confidence on Camera with Dr. Dustin Portela

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