Joel Bervell

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Joel Bervell

Joel Bervell is a Ghanaian-American medical student, science communicator and host of ‘The Dose’ Podcast with The Commonwealth Fund .

In 2017, Joel graduated from Yale University, where he earned a BA in Molecular Cellular Developmental Biology. There, Joel served as an elected member of Yale student government, and director of a longitudinal mentorship program based in low-income neighborhoods. After graduating, he completed a Masters in Medical Science at Boston University and spent a year working as a clinical research assistant at Providence Hospital, researching best treatment modalities for appendicitis.

Joel is currently a medical student at Washington State University, Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. There, he served as Medical Student Council President and the co-founder and president of a chapter of the Student National Medical Association. He is also the founder and director of the Coug Health Academic Mentoring Program (CHAMP), a mentoring program dedicated to increasing the number of underrepresented students interested in medicine.

Online, Joel is better known as the '‘Medical Mythbuster.” He is committed to fighting health disparities in medicine through education and regularly shares topics about racial disparities, the hidden history of medicine, and biases in healthcare and other industries on his TikTok and Instagram (@joelbervell) where his social media platforms have over 1M+ combined followers and 300M+ impressions. He has been invited to speak at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Google, Meta, on behalf of the Congressional Black Congress and Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the Clinton Foundation, Barclays Bank, Morgan Stanley, Network of the National Library of Medicine, Verizon, Open Society Foundations, Bank of America, General Electric and more. His brand collaborations include Google, Neutrogena, Samsung, Listerine, Gushers, the American Medical Association, American Lung Association, BET and more. He has also spoken on well-known local and national media outlets including the Kelly Clarkson Show, Good Morning America, NPR, YahooNews and WebMd, has produced digital media content featured on Vox, Aljazeera and Brut Media, and has published work in prestigious academic journals such as the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

He currently is a participant in the White House Office of Public Engagement’s Healthcare Leaders in Social Media Roundtable, on the Council for Responsible Social Media, served as the American Medical Association’s Medical Student Digital Fellow, on The Atlantic’s Health Equity Advisory Board, and worked with the World Health Organization’s Digital Communications Team to combat the spread of misinformation on social media about COVID-19.

Joel was been named by TikTok as the top 2021 “Voice for Change,” featured by TikTok as one of 10 “Changemakers” on their inaugural Discover List, named as one of ten recipients of the 50K MACRO x TikTok Black Creatives Grant, a part of Meta’s 2022 We The Culture Class, and was a nominee for the AdColor Awards.

His work has earned him the honor of being named a 2024 TED Fellow, Seattle Forbes 30 Under 30, 2022 Smithsonian Channel ‘Cyclebreaker,’ Scientific American ‘Revolutionary,’ Rock Health Top 50 in Digital Health, 2023 Anthem Award Gold Winner, and 2022 National Minority Quality Forum “40 under 40 Leader in Minority Health. Mashable called him “your next must follow creator.” He is the recipient of the National Medical Association’s Emerging Scholar Award, the highest academic honor presented to a student by the National Medical Association.

Beyond social media, Joel is also the co-founder of Hugs for, a non-profit that is dedicated to empowering the next generation of high school global leaders. Today, Hugs has mobilized hundreds of youth volunteers and fundraised over $500,000 worth of material gifts and monetary donations and successfully planned trips to Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. Joel has served in an advisory role on the boards of multiple non-profits including the National Student Response Network, Hope in A Box, and the Ron Brown Leaders Network Council.

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