At the time of this interview, the end of Heleen Lameijers’ maternity leave is in sight. Eleven weeks earlier she gave birth to her first child. Now she is about to go on vacation for a few days, but she likes to make time for a conversation. Sitting still is not for her, that should be clear.
More than 40,000 followers
She works 34 hours a week as an emergency physician at the Medical Center Leeuwarden, and is also a scientist. “I combined those two functions from the start,” she says. In addition, she has founded a successful company: she has developed online (child) CPR courses, which she now sells. Heleen is also a much sought-after speaker and has written two books. One is a textbook, which is about problem-oriented thinking in emergency medicine. In the other, In the emergency roomshe gives an insight into her dynamic life as an ER doctor.
And then there is a blog, Instagram and LinkedIn account, where she explains medical knowledge in an understandable way. Especially with that Instagram account she gained great fame. The counter is now at 43,800 followers. Does she sometimes do nothing? She also raises that question herself, on the ‘About me’ page on her website Make Science Work. “Absolutely!”, it reads there. “I love long dinners and Netflix.”
Combine tasks
“It also helps that I can combine the work well,” she says laughing on the phone. “If I have to study scientific literature for research, I immediately see if I can also write a blog about it. I already have to translate that complicated knowledge in my own head, so it’s a small effort to do the same for my followers. That way I can multitask a bit.”
And that goes beyond research for research. Even if she has a personal medical question, Heleen shares the answer with followers. “When I was just pregnant, I wanted to know whether or not I should get a flu vaccine. Then I dived into literature myself and wrote a blog about it.”
Threats and negative reactions
In addition, it is anything but her goal to convince followers to get a vaccine or not. She wants to inform people so that they can make a well-founded decision for themselves. At the time of corona, this was not understood by everyone. “Some people thought I was some kind of machine set up by the government,” she says, now in a more serious tone. “The reactions I got to my posts at the time were not always nice.”
She has been threatened several times and had to block people because they went too far. “If someone sent me such a DM (direct message, in other words: a private message, ed.), it did something to me. It’s pretty intense that someone takes the time and effort to type something really nasty to you. Fortunately, that is much less now.”
Heleen always started the conversation, to show people that there was a real person behind the account. “That didn’t always have an effect, but sometimes it did. It has led to great conversations, with people who had questions or were afraid. In the beginning, of course, little was known about the side effects that the vaccinations had in certain groups.”
“Did you know?”-Wednesday
Heleen started sharing medical knowledge on social media in 2018. The reason was a conversation with a friend on the terrace. They both had headaches. “I asked her if she had taken paracetamol. Turns out she had only swallowed one. While that has little effect as a grown woman, you really need two to get rid of your headache. I thought it was odd that she didn’t know that. When I started asking around in my area, it turned out that many people had no idea.”
Who knows, she could teach more people how their bodies work, Heleen thought. So she started with a “Did You Know?” Wednesday and a “Fact & Fiction” Friday on Instagram. The reactions – and followers – soon poured in. The need for medical knowledge in understandable language turned out to be great.
Little knowledge about CPR
Many things make sense to healthcare providers, but not to the general public. In the beginning, Heleen also wrote a blog about ankle injuries. If you’ve sprained your ankle, how do you know if you need to see a doctor? “If it hurts in certain places, you should have a photo taken. If that is not the case, then it is better to wait a few days. That saves another hospital visit. In this way I hope to give people more control.”
Heleen also reaches a large audience with her online CPR courses. She started doing this in 2021, after a young man ended up in the ER with her. He had fallen down in the pub and no one could resuscitate him. “That was harrowing. Quite a bit of time had passed between the moment he fell down and the moment the ambulance brought him in to us.” The man therefore did not survive.
That night Helen could not sleep. While scrolling Instagram, she saw someone offering an online photography course. “Hey, I thought, can’t I set up something like this for CPR? Simply digitally, so that people can simply follow the course from home?”
President of America
The course consists of eight modules of about fifteen minutes, including tests and optional articles and videos for extra depth. A children’s CPR course is now also available and Heleen is supported by a team of freelancers. Her goal: to teach the whole of the Netherlands how to resuscitate.
The ambitions of ‘the Instadokter’ are clear. Has she always had such a clear drive? “As a child I wanted to be president of America,” she laughs. “Until I found out that that was not possible at all.” In third grade, she secretly enrolled in an LOI course to be a beautician. But she also had to say goodbye to that dream when her parents found a huge bill on the doormat. “I thought it was really cheap, haha. And besides, I had to finish my pre-university education first.”
Good feeling
During the conversation that followed, her father suggested medicine as a field of study. Heleen: “I think all those things have in common that I wanted to mean something to other people. As a beautician, you also make people feel good. I think it is important to give something back to society. I studied for a long time, and that was largely financed by taxpayers’ money. Of course I worked hard to get here, but I also got the chance to do that.”
Heleen rarely responds to requests from companies to advertise. “I want to be credible. And it should be fun. I only write about topics that interest me. If someone asks me to write a blog about a specific topic, I usually say no. I do a lot for other people, but I don’t serve them.” So now let’s go on vacation for a while, and enjoy her leave for a while.
By: Nationale Zorggids / Bente Schreurs
Photo: Marga de Groot
2023-06-05 06:45:09
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