Joel Bervell is leveraging his knowledge as a medical doctor to combat racial disparities in healthcare.
Where His Mission Was Born
Born in Canada to parents from Ghana, Bervell describes himself as a “third culture kid” in an interview with AFROTECH™. Growing up in the U.S., he always recognized a duality, as he remained connected to other places. His grandmother, who was the caretaker to him and his siblings while his parents were in school and working, played a key role in his upbringing in America. When Bervell was in sixth grade, his grandmother moved back to Ghana, and within a year, she died of malaria.
“That was one of my earliest experiences even realizing that healthcare disparities…even existed,” Bervell said.
After graduating from Kamiak High School in Mukilteo, WA, Bervell earned a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology at Yale University and his master’s in medical studies from Boston University (BU). Still pondering his next steps, which toggled between medicine, research, and health policy, he spent his summers navigating different areas of the healthcare ecosystem. This included researching the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, during his time at the Urban Institute.
“The research I was doing was on the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid, making more people be able to access it from different federal poverty level income levels…and what that actually did to the healthcare system…I looked at the healthcare system in college from different lenses, both on the medical side but also on the policy side,” Bervell shared with AFROTECH™.
After graduating from BU, Bervell completed his research year at Providence Hospital, where he learned about Washington State University’s medical school. Its 10th president, Elson S. Floyd, made it the school’s mission to support underserved communities, which played a key role in Bervell’s attendance. Floyd passed away from cancer, but his legacy lives on through the medical school, which was named in his honor.
“While I was at Providence doing my research, I heard this story and I said, ‘There’s something about this that just resonates with me,'” Bervell expressed.
“One, the fact that they’ve named the school after a Black man, which is very rare in the United States. Two, that it’s so centered on equity and really reaching the parts of Washington state that haven’t been touched often,” he continued.
@joelbervell First day of M2 year ✅ I had online classes & saw stroke patients in a rehabilitation center! #medicalschool #medicalstudent #premed #greysanatomy
When Bervell enrolled in the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine in 2019, he was one of two Black students, he shared with AFROTECH™. This motivated him to address disparities in health and representation, helping expand opportunities for underrepresented university students. So, he became the co-founder and President of the National Medical Association for students, which was dedicated to increasing access to healthcare in minority communities.
Leveraging Social Media To Raise Awareness
Today, Bervell’s efforts have expanded to digital platforms. In 2020, during his first year of medical school, he started creating videos and sharing them on platforms such as TikTok to address disparities in healthcare. In his interview with AFROTECH™, Bervell recalled the moment that pushed him to begin content creation. In a class, he learned about a skin condition called cyanosis. He was told it could be detected by looking at the skin and seeing if it turned blue.
“I decided to raise my hand at that moment and ask the professor, ‘What would this look like in darker skin tones?’ And he looked a little surprised, but he had a great answer,” Bervell mentioned. “He said, ‘You can look at your mucous membrane. You can look at your eyes. You can look at your nail beds. There are all these different ways that you can figure out if someone is cyanotic, separate from looking at someone’s skin tone.”
“After class, one of my friends named Brooke came up to me and she said, ‘I’m really glad that you asked that question because I don’t know, if you hadn’t asked it, when the first time I would have seen that would have been.’ And that moment was really powerful for me because I realized that…when it came to so many different things in medicine, we didn’t have an equitable way of discussing it, and that would impact people down the line in the care that they received. So that was the start,” he added.
One of Bervell’s earliest videos to take off on TikTok was about a medical device called a pulse oximeter, which measures blood oxygen saturation levels. During his 2020 winter break, he saw an Instagram story citing an article that said patients with darker skin tones were three times more likely to have misread pulse oximeter results. He did not learn this while working with doctors on various hospital units.
@joelbervell Here’s an example of racial bias in medicine. #greenscreen #healthcare #medicine #race #bias #doctor #black #blm #covid19 #education #premed #science
In a follow-up video on TikTok, Bervell reported that the initial video was viewed over half a million times within 24 hours of posting. It has garnered 152.5k likes (at the time of this writing). Over the years, he has talked about various topics, including root canals, AI’s impact on data collection and analysis, and how dermatological conditions appear on Black vs white skin.
Partnerships And Awards
Bringing attention to various issues has led Bervell to build a strong social media presence. He has 594k followers on Instagram and 782.6k followers on TikTok, paired with 26.7 million likes (at the time of this writing). He shared with AFROTECH™ that he has also scored partnerships with the White House, the American Medical Association, Neutrogena, Vaseline, and Microsoft.
In 2025, he accepted a Peabody Award in the interactive and immersive category and was recognized among the TIME100 Creators list.
Inspiring Younger Generations
Beyond his social media platforms, Bervell launched an animated children’s television series called “The Doctor Is In” on YouTube, which is energizing interest in STEM. Bervell shared with AFROTECH™ that the project has been supported with $110,000 from YouTube and Kickstarter to fund half a season.
“At the end of the day it’s about representation. It’s about making sure that young kids are able to see themselves in the future and that we keep building up and creating people who are curious about the world and want to make it better and work in a way that is equitable for everyone,” he said.
