Alumna turns to social media to encourage patient outreach and education
Sonya Bholé, M’09, finds sense of purpose, reduced burnout in providing patient education
Sonya Bholé, M’09, partners with organizations like the American College of Radiology to educate patients.
In late 2022, Sonya Bholé, M’09, led the opening of a new ambulatory breast imaging clinic in Evanston, Illinois — the first from Northwestern Medicine.
Nestled amid a suburban neighborhood, the center is just steps away from Northwestern’s undergraduate campus and the shores of Lake Michigan. It is, in many ways, the opposite of the college’s downtown hospital where Bholé has worked since her residency training in 2016.
The community setting is a chance to embrace a patient-centric model by bringing health care and education right to patients’ doorsteps, says Bholé, the drector and physician lead of ambulatory breast imaging. Her passion for patient education began during her second year of medical school when she joined a group of her classmates, led by Department of Surgery professor Michel Aboutanos, M.D., H’00, on a trip to Ecuador to deliver medical supplies and other necessities to children in a remote village.
Bholé says the experience was eye-opening and helped her reconnect with her love of medicine.
“In medical school, you’re in the trenches,” she says. “I was in the library stacks every day, studying in isolation. That trip brought back my sense of purpose.
“Even now, with physician burnout, finding a sense of purpose can pull you out of the mundane day-to-day tasks. For me, that purpose is patient education.”
Encouraging advocacy
While the concept of patient-centered care was first introduced in the 1950s, its influence on health care systems and policy is more recent. In her own practice, Bholé noticed it coming to the surface in the last five years as patients have easier access to their own health information. In addition, there’s been an increase in doctors and health professionals sharing their expertise with wide audiences on social media.
“My dad is an orthopedic surgeon and in his era 30 years ago, it was more paternalistic,” Bholé says. “Patients would come in and listen to what the doctor had to say. Now, patients want to talk about their care and be involved in it.”
Social media’s growth brought with it a rise in misinformation.
To help patients arm themselves with accurate medical information, Bholé began sharing videos on social media that promoted breast cancer screenings, addressed top myths about breast cancer, demystified mammograms and more. She focused on creating content that was backed by evidence, yet presented with simple language and descriptions the general public could easily grasp.
Her videos gained traction, but she found that maintaining her platform took time away from her patients. These days, she does community outreach on local and national podcasts and gives talks around Chicago. And instead of posting on her own channels, she partners with organizations like the American College of Radiology and the Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Foundation at Northwestern to bring her content to their followers.
The new ambulatory care clinic in Evanston has also given her a new avenue for connecting with and educating patients, reinforcing her decision to pursue breast imaging — a field she calls the right balance of diagnostic puzzles and direct patient care.
“I get to do screening exams and biopsies, and then see patients for their surveillance after breast cancer,” she says. “I get to be a piece of every part of their breast journey.”
Of course, that includes educating patients on their health care options as well.
“There’s so much information available, and it’s really exciting that patients are more engaged,” Bholé says. “It’s important to be involved in your own health care so you can be your own advocate.”