UMN Family Medicine Resident Goes Viral with Anti-Vaping Posts
North Memorial resident Rose Marie Leslie, MD, has captured the attention of nearly 250,000 followers on the popular video sharing app TikTok with her concise and friendly mini-lessons on everything health-related, from kidney stones to menstrual cups. She also shares brief, humorous anecdotes about the life of a medical resident at Broadway Family Medicine. Recently, Dr. Leslie gained national attention for her videos on the dangers of vaping and e-cigarettes.
This fall, news media outlets including Rolling Stone, ABC News, Star Tribune, Minnesota Daily, Kare11, and Good Morning America ran stories about the impact she has had on youth who are interested in learning more about health issues, particularly ones that affect them directly - like how to understand the evidence behind the emerging vaping crisis.
The response to her videos has been enormously positive among TikTok users. Dr. Leslie credits sharing “what the CDC is putting out in a palatable way, in the space where teens and young adults are,” as the key to her success.
She has even encouraged growing numbers of young smokers to kick the habit - using videos that are all 60 seconds or less.
“I share health information the way that I would to one of my friends,” says Dr. Leslie. “I really think that’s the most effective way of talking about a health topic and getting people to listen.”
Want to see more of Dr. Leslie’s videos? Follow her on TikTok, where she posts several times each week.
