Tomorrow’s Tech, Today: Innovation That Moves Us Forward
- Personal tragedy inspired his advocacy: Dr Joel Bervell founded Hugs for Ghana after his grandmother's death exposed healthcare disparities.
- His medical media work exposed racial bias in tools like the pulse oximeter and influenced curricula, earning praise and awards from major institutions.
- He created the animated series The Dr Is In via Kickstarter and YouTube to inspire underrepresented children toward careers in medicine.
Dr Joel Bervell’s animated children’s show, The Dr is In, has recently been brought to Amazon Prime.
The Ghanaian-American physician started posting on TikTok in 2019 and went viral for his work highlighting racial biases in medicine. The New York Times, the American Medical Association (AMA), Forbes, and others have since recognized him as the “medical mythbuster.”
In his children’s series, Bervell acts as a role model, showing Black children what a career as a doctor looks like. With Prime now distributing the show, its reach will only grow.
About Dr Joel Bervell
Born in British Columbia, Canada, to Ghanaian immigrant parents, Bervell spent a lot of time with his grandmother while his parents were at work. When he was in seventh grade, his grandmother permanently moved back to Ghana. A few years later, she contracted malaria. The healthcare facility she visited didn’t have the medication she needed, and she died. This was the first time Bervell saw the disparities in healthcare.
In honor of his grandmother, Bervell and his family started an NGO called Hugs for Ghana. While she was alive, his grandmother would secretly take his toys to donate to underprivileged children in Ghana. His family continued this tradition and grew the charity.
“I think a lot of people see … my social media presence, are like, ‘oh, like social media was the first time that you built something,’ but really it was Hugs for Ghana and as a middle school, high school student, literally getting my friends to rally around this cause that they had no direct stake in … really becoming a more global-minded citizen,” Bervell told Fierce Pharma.
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Fighting Racism within Healthcare
After high school, Bervell kept building on that impact. He earned a bachelor’s degree in molecular cellular developmental biology at Yale University, then a master’s degree in medical science at Boston University. It was during his first year as a medical student that Bervell started posting on TikTok. At first, he shared his day-to-day, study tips, and the realities of being a medical student. But when the COVID-19 Pandemic began, he shifted towards more educational content.
One of his first viral videos was about the pulse oximeter. “Because of differences in how the skin absorbs light … Black patients are more than three times as likely to have inaccurate, overestimated oxygen saturation levels compared to white patients,” Bervell said in the video. He explained how this could affect whether Black patients received a COVID diagnosis. Bervell has since continued the medical myth busters series, which educates viewers on racial disparities and health misinformation.
Bervell went on to attend the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine at Washington State University, where he graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree in 2025. He was surprised to learn he was one of the first black students at the college, which opened in 2017. That only motivated him further to keep advocating for health equity and more Black representation in medicine.
Accolades and Awards
His work on social media has had a profound impact. Medical school syllabuses have added the topics he highlighted, and the AMA has praised his work. He was even invited to the White House’s Healthcare Leaders in Social Media Roundtable.
In 2021, Dr. Bervell was named by TikTok as the top “Voice for Change.” He also received the MACRO x TikTok Black creatives grant, a $50,000 award to continue his work. Scientific American named him a “Revolutionary” in 2022, and in 2024 he was also named a TED fellow. That year, he also won a Peabody Award for his digital series “What does racial bias in medicine look like?” In 2025, Time100 named him one of the most influential digital voices in its inaugural creators list in 2025, and Forbes included him on its Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
He has more than 2.5 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, and reaches over 30 million people every month. His content has generated more than 500 million impressions. He also hosts The Dose, a podcast produced by the Commonwealth Fund, that explores fresh ideas, new perspectives, and compelling conversations about where health care is headed. His forthcoming book, The Default Body, will be published by Henry Holt and Company. It examines how medicine often operates on the idea of a “default” human body, and what happens to patients who fall outside of that norm.
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The Dr is In
Bervell’s social media work has reached millions. With The Dr Is In, he is now reaching younger audiences about medicine. Growing up, the only character Bervell saw who looked like him was Static Shock, a Black teen superhero. “I’m definitely not a superhero, but I honestly saw myself a lot in his story, and I was inspired to want to do more, be more, because of the animation that I saw,” Dr. Bervell said to AMA. He started the YouTube series with a Kickstarter campaign that raised $60,000. YouTube contributed another $50,000 to help finance a full season of 10 episodes, three to five minutes each.
In the show, Dr. Bervell is a pediatrician joined by his patient, 5-year-old Leland, who has asthma. The show answers everyday health questions—such as why we wash our hands, how dental health works, or what causes asthma. Their companions are a supercomputer (Zada), a stethoscope (Sammie), and a doctor’s bag (Otto). Dr. Bervell appears as himself; the other characters are animated. “It’s all about inspiring the next generation of underrepresented kids in medicine,” Dr Bervell said. Since launching in 2024, the YouTube channel has grown to 94 videos, nearly 12,000 subscribers, and 500,000 views. The show is now also streaming on Amazon Prime.
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Growing Representation in Children’s Media
The Dr is In joins Gracie’s Corner and Bino and Fino in a growing wave of creator-led shows reshaping children’s television. Rather than relying on legacy studios to include Black characters, passionate creators and families created new shows themselves. Starting on YouTube gave them the opportunity to find their audience organically and build while maintaining creative agency. These shows have now caught the attention of streaming platforms like Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Disney+. Each new distribution deal suggests that streaming platforms see a strong demand for these stories.
Creators like Bervell are proving that you can start with a Kickstarter and a YouTube channel, and grow to be distributed on Amazon Prime. With The Dr is In, Bervell is working to ensure that Black children grow up seeing Black doctors on screen, helping them believe that they can reach there one day too.
Main image: Screenshot from The Dr is In on YouTube.
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