Draft:Joel Bervell

Joel Bervell is a Ghanaian-American Internet personality and medical student sometimes referred to as the "medical mythbuster.

Early life and education
Bervell was born in Richmond, British Columbia. When he was two years old, his family moved to Mukilteo, Washington, where he was raised. Bervell's parents are from Ghana, and his family made frequent trips to Ghana throughout his childhood. Bervell's father is a transportation engineer for Snohomish County and his mother works as an administrator at a local hospital.

While in middle school, Bervell and his siblings founded a nonprofit organization called Hugs for Ghana. The nonprofit was founded in honor of his grandmother, who had died from malaria while living in Ghana. The organization's first project was a stuffed animal drive which gathered more than 5,000 donations. Between 2007 and 2022, Hugs for Ghana raised over $500,000 for medical and school supplies in Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. Bervell and his family traveled to Africa each year to distribute the supplies.

Bervell attended Kamiak High School, where he served as Student Body President and president of seven school clubs. He graduated from the school in 2013. He then attended Yale University, receiving a bachelor of science degree in molecular cellular developmental biology in 2017. Bervell's college education was funded by $150,000 in scholarships. While at Yale, Bervell was on the Yale College Council. Bervell began attending Boston University in 2017, receiving a master's degree in medical clinical sciences in 2019. In 2019, Bervell was accepted to the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine at Washington State University. He began attending the school in 2019 and is one of the first Black students at the medical college.

Career
In 2019, during his first year of medical school, Bervell created a TikTok account, posting his first video in December of that year. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bervell read an article about pulse oximeters which cited a research finding that pulse oximeters have the ability to overestimate blood oxygen aspiration levels in people with darker skin. Despite the research being decades old, the Food and Drug Administration did not have a warning on pulse oximeters. In response, Bervell created a TikTok video about racial bias and pulse oximeters, which began a series on racial bias in medicine. Following attention from Bervell's video, the FDA added a warning to their website about the effectiveness of pulse oximeters on darker skin.

In 2021, Bervell was named a top TikTok "Voice for Change" and was later awarded a TikTok Black Creatives Grant of $50,000 to work on his "dream project."

By September 2022, Bervell had amassed more than 391,000 followers on TikTok and more than 60,000 followers on Instagram and had collaborated with US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy for a TikTok video. . Bervell also received a message from a woman who was able to identify a precancerous lesion on on her foot after watching one of Bervell's videos. In 2022, Bervell earned more than $100,000 in brand deals and was charging a minimum of $4000 per video. His brand deals included partnerships with Neutrogena, Johnson & Johnson, Gushers, Samsung, and Quizlet.

In 2023, Bervell was invited to the White House's Healthcare Leaders in Social Media Roundtable. Later that year, Bervell was named to Seattle's local Forbes 30 Under 30. Bervell also signed a contract with a management agency, Kensington Gray.

By February 2024, Bervell had more than 600,000 followers on TikTok and more than 200,000 followers on Instagram. In March, Bervell appeared on the Kelly Clarkson Show. In April, Bervell was chosen as a TED Fellow.