Page 33 - Edify-Nov-Dec-2023

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SHAZMA MITHANI
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“My hill to die on is to make sure our health care remains free and accessible to every Albertan,” the 39-year-old says. “My plat- form has grown, but my bot- tom line is still the same: to be an easy and accessible way for people to get information about health and improve overall health literacy.”
Mithani — who garnered
her 2022 Top 40 spot in large part due to her tireless work in correcting the record regarding online misinfor- mation — says she’s pivoted away from certain social media platforms where lax regulation has amplified the problem.
“I’ve pivoted away from X (formerly Twitter) because the toxicity there has increased dramatically in the health- care space in particular,” she says. “There’s often a lot of negative comments and ha- rassment my colleagues and
I get in that space. I put a lot more of myself into Instagram and TikTok.”
It shows. Her follower count on Instagram is up to nearly 13,000 and her videos on TikTok have amassed mil- lions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes.
The Class of ’22 alumna is still saving lives as an emer- gency doctor at The Royal Alexandra and Stollery Children’s hospitals and she’s still winning hearts and minds in the battle against medical misinformation.
But Mithani is skeptical of heaping a lot of value onto social-media popularity. She says she wants to be a trusted source in a media ecosystem where follower count has become the de facto measure of credibility.
“These mega-influencers ...
that are often the source of misinformation seem to be trusted by the public simply because their following is large,” she says. “My goal
is to cut through that noise and be a reliable voice in that space.”
–Jesse Cole
2023 Distinguished Alumna
JANICE KRISSA-MOORE
Business Administration 1998
Co-founder, Free Store for Ukrainian Newcomers Senior VP Fund Development,
Junior Achievement, Northern Alberta and NWT
2023 Outstanding Young Alumna
DANIELLE MURRISON
Architectural Technologies 2017
Director of Construction, CRAFT Beer Market
2023 Outstanding Young Alumnus
TEJESHWAR GREWAL
Bachelor of Applied Technology Petroleum Engineering 2018
Vice President of Innovation, Qube Technologies
2023 International Impact Alumnus
ROGER HADDAD
Automotive Service Technician 2007
Test Engineer,
Red Bull Powertrains
2023 Clarence Hollingworth Alumni Employee Award of Excellence CINDY HUMPHRIES
Medical Radiologic Technology 2005
Educational Laboratory Technologist, SAIT