Doctor Mike

Mikhail "Mike" Oskarovich Varshavski (Михаил Оскарович Варшавский; born November 12, 1989), known online as Doctor Mike, is a Russian-American YouTuber, internet personality, family physician, philanthropist, and professional boxer. His Instagram account went viral after he was featured in BuzzFeed and People magazine named him The Sexiest Doctor Alive in 2015. He has a YouTube channel on which he posts medically themed entertainment videos and debunks false medical claims.

Early life
Varshavski was born on November 12, 1989, in Saransk, Russian SFSR, to a Jewish family. His father, Oskar, was born in Ukraine, and worked as a physician after graduating from the Third Medical Institute of Moscow, while his mother, an ethnic Russian, was a mathematics professor. He has an older sister, Dasha, who was born in 1980. When he was five, he and his family immigrated to Brooklyn, New York. The family immigrated as refugees, and their first apartment was a $500 rent-controlled apartment with mice and cockroaches.

Varshavski was given the nickname "Doctor Mike" during his high school years by friends who came to him for sports-related injuries. After seeing his father's relationship with his patients, Varshavski wanted to become a doctor. He enrolled in the New York Institute of Technology and was accepted for an accelerated, seven-year combined track for a bachelor's degree in life sciences and a medical degree (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) upon completion of the undergraduate program. During his first year in the NYIT medical portion of the accelerated program, his mother died of leukemia, and he decided to move back in with his father. In 2014, he started a residency at Atlantic Health System's Overlook Medical Center's Family Medicine program, which he completed in 2017.

Career
In early 2012, Varshavski joined Instagram to document his life as a medical student and combat the notion that "you can't have a life in medical school". Varshavski uses his social media to provide health information to millennials.

Varshavski gained media attention in August 2015 when BuzzFeed published an article about him titled "Um, You Really Need To See This Hot Doctor And His Dog" that highlighted his good looks and his relationship with his dog, a Newfoundland dog named Bear. In 2024, he bought another Newfoundland dog named Rib. That November, People magazine named him "the Sexiest Doctor Alive" in its Sexiest Man Alive issue, popularizing his Instagram account.

In 2017, a year after he launched his YouTube channel, Varshavski gave a TED x Talk on "The epidemic of the 'I Know It All' expert" at a TEDxMonteCarlo event. The video of that speech has been viewed more than 3 million times.

In 2018, after his residency, he joined Chatham Family Medicine, a family practice with Atlantic Health System, in Chatham, New Jersey.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Varshavski reconfigured his YouTube videos to answer people's questions about the virus. Varshavski debunked many of Judy Mikovits' claims about COVID-19 from the conspiracy film, Plandemic. In March 2020, Varshavski interviewed Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), about the pandemic.

On November 12, 2020, for his 31st birthday, Varshavski traveled to Miami to attend a beach party that was also attended by a number of other people without masks, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Footage of the event was posted on Instagram and went viral, particularly on Reddit. On November 18, Varshavski apologized for his actions in a YouTube video, saying he "messed up" and he needed "to do better". His attendance of the party was criticized by medical professionals. Bioethicist Arthur Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Health, said Varshavski "fails completely in being an appropriate role model and he should be called out, and he deserves even more criticism than he's getting so far."

Varshavski made his amateur boxing debut in May 2022 against influencer iDubbbz as the headline fight in the Creator Clash boxing event. He won his match against iDubbbz in a unanimous decision. Varshavski made his professional debut against Chris Avila on the undercard of Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva. He lost the fight via unanimous decision.

In September 2022, he launched a health related podcast on his YouTube channel named "The Checkup Podcast with Doctor Mike", which was re-named to "The Checkup with Doctor Mike". The podcast covers subjects related to sexual health, mental health, physical health, and social health. Varshavski has interviewed friends, medical professionals, athletes, comedians and actors. Guests have included Steve-O, KSI, Tony Hale, Dane Cook, Hannah Brown, Marques Brownlee, Steve Madden, Steven He, Barbara Corcoran, Kal Penn, and Brandon Marshall.

Philanthropy
In late 2015, Varshavski established a foundation, Limitless Tomorrow, to provide scholarships to students, and he has raised money for it by auctioning experiences with himself through his social media accounts. In January 2016, the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel collaborated in a $10 raffle for a date with Varshavski; the campaign raised $91,000 for his foundation.

In July 2019, Varshavski spread awareness for the humanitarian organization Save a Child's Heart by posting a photo with the organization's 5,000th patient while on a trip to Israel.

In March 2020, Varshavski donated $50,000 worth of N95 masks in the face of shortages for medical personnel due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In late March 2022, Varshavski set up a donation to GlobalGiving for Ukrainian people during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In June 2022, Varshavski donated $100,111 to Feeding America through a fundraiser organized by YouTuber Ryan Trahan.

Personal life
Varshavski has three nephews, Daniel, Steven, and Ari, they have all previously appeared on his YouTube channel.

In 2014, he dated Cynthia Olavarría, their relationship ended after he graduated medical school in 2015. In 2016, he and Filipino actress and 2015 Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach met at a charity event in New York and started dating. He dated American television news reporter Jennifer Lahmers in 2017.

In May 2022, Varshavski had his Lamborghini Urus stolen for at least five hours by a parking attendant at Hudson Yards. His building's security staff notified him and a police report was filed. According to a check on the license plate, the car had traveled all over New York City.

In 2023, during an episode of his podcast, The Checkup with Doctor Mike, he revealed to his guest, Harry Jowsey, that after his COVID-19 controversy in November 2020, he had to seek therapy, and without it he would have been "screwed".

In 2023, he revealed that Roxy, their 12 year old family Husky, had her front right leg surgically removed, believed to be due to a tight bandaid making her leg gangrenous; the bandaid was applied after a surgery to treat a sarcoma in her paw.

Awards and nominations
Varshavski won the 2020 Webby Awards for Education & Discovery, as well as for Health & Fitness in the category Social.