Medical PR for Physicians: What Earned Media Really Does

Giang Le: Here's a sentence that should bother you a little. A patient will trust a two line quote from a doctor in a random news article more than they'll trust a beautifully produced ad from that same doctor. More than the ad. That's not fair, exactly, but it's true, and it's the whole reason medical PR exists. I'm Giang, founder of Studio Germina, and today I want to actually explain how this works, because most physicians have a completely wrong idea of what PR is and what it can do for them.

Giang Le: There are only three kinds of media, so let's get this out of the way fast. Owned media is what you publish yourself. Your website, your newsletter, your Instagram. Paid media is advertising, you pay, it runs. Earned media is coverage a journalist chose to give you, because you were useful to a story they were already telling. You cannot buy earned media. That's exactly why it's worth something. It carries the outlet's credibility onto your name, it sits in search results for years, and it becomes a real line in your bio instead of a claim you're making about yourself.

Giang Le: Here's the part people get backwards. Journalists don't cover physicians. They cover stories, and they need a credible source to help them tell it. So a physician gets covered by being the exact source a journalist needs on the exact day they need one. That means almost all the real work happens before any single placement. First, positioning. A journalist writing about a new sleep study doesn't need quote unquote a doctor, they need a sleep specialist who can explain what it means for a regular person. If you're known for one clear thing, you get the call. If you're a generalist who does a little of everything, you don't. Second, speed. News moves in hours, not days. The doctor who replies within the hour with three clean, quotable sentences gets used. The one who replies tomorrow with four paragraphs of careful caveats does not, even if the caveats are smarter. Third, a track record. Journalists check you out before they quote you. A clear bio, a body of public work, previous quotes, that all reads as safe. Nothing there reads as risky. And fourth, relationships. A small number of reporters who cover your space start to remember that you were reliable, clear, and fast, and they come back to you specifically. That relationship is the actual asset a PR program builds over time. It's not a press release. It's trust with specific people.

Giang Le: Let me make that concrete, because it's easier to feel than to describe. Say a big study drops on a new weight loss drug, and a health reporter needs someone who can explain what the numbers actually mean for a patient sitting in an exam room tomorrow. Two doctors see the reporter's callout online. The first writes back a full page, three studies deep, hedged from top to bottom. The second writes back four sentences, plain English, one clear takeaway, and offers to jump on a call in the next twenty minutes. The second doctor gets the quote, not because they know less, but because they understood the assignment. That's the whole game in miniature. And here's the mistake I see constantly, physicians treat a pitch like a press release, all announcement, no angle. A journalist does not care that you opened a new clinic. They care about why it matters to their reader this week. Fix the angle, and everything else in this episode gets a lot easier.

Giang Le: Before any of that pitching can work, a few things have to already be in place, and this is where a lot of doctors stall out. You need a clear, one sentence position, something you're known for. You need a professional bio in a few different lengths, short, medium, long. You need a decent headshot. You need a page on your own site a journalist can actually verify you from. And you need to understand what you can and can't say publicly under whatever agreement you have with your employer, which is honestly its own conversation I've done a whole other episode on. And then, the unglamorous one, you need to actually be willing to answer a reporter's email between patients. Without those basics, pitching is just noise into the void. With them, coverage starts to compound, one placement makes the next one easier to get.

Giang Le: When we run PR at Studio Germina, we don't run it as one off pitches, because one off pitches mostly go nowhere. We run it as a program. Positioning and message work up front. An expert source profile. A real target list of the outlets and the specific reporters who cover your area. Proactive pitching on an actual rhythm, not just when we feel like it. Rapid response so we can jump on breaking stories while they're still breaking. Media training so the interview itself goes well. And tracking, so you can actually see what the coverage produced instead of just feeling vaguely good about it. I built a healthcare earned media program from nothing that landed more than twenty five placements a year. I'm not saying that to brag, I'm saying it because that's the difference between a program and a hobby. I'll put the links in the description if you want to see how we describe that model in more detail.

Giang Le: Now the honest part, the part a lot of PR people skip because it's less fun to say. Nobody can guarantee you coverage. A journalist decides what runs, an editor decides after that, and you are not in that room. If someone guarantees you a placement, they're either quietly paying for it, which is just advertising wearing a PR costume, or they're lying to you. Nobody controls what gets written either. You can prepare well, you can be clear, you can decline to answer a question you don't like. You cannot approve the article before it goes out. Nobody can make it fast. A real program takes months to build the relationships and the track record that make placements possible, and your first one usually takes longer to land than your tenth. And here's the one that matters most, coverage does not equal patients, and it does not equal revenue, by itself. It builds credibility and search presence and the raw material for everything else you do. The actual commercial value shows up through the rest of the system around it. That's exactly why we never treat PR as a standalone service. It only works as part of something bigger.

Giang Le: So where does this actually sit for a physician building something online. Earned media is the bridge from having followers to having a reputation. It's what turns has an audience into is the expert outlets actually call, and that second thing is what speaking bureaus, publishers, advisory boards, and serious brand partners are looking for before they say yes to you. It's also, honestly, work you have neither the time nor the training to do well on your own between patients. That's not a knock on you, it's just true, it's a specialized skill, the same way medicine is a specialized skill to me.

Giang Le: Here's the line I always come back to. You are the medical expert. I am the marketing and business expert. You keep doing the part only you can do, seeing patients, answering questions, teaching people things that actually help them. We handle the positioning, the pitching, the reporter relationships, the follow up, and the tracking that proves any of it worked. If you're a physician or healthcare creator who would rather just create, book a consultation at studio germina dot com, and we'll handle the business side with you. The links are below, I'll put them in the show notes. Thanks for spending this time with me, I'll talk to you next episode.