When Serv Wahan opens Instagram, his feed populates with photos of niche medical instruments and surgery videos cloaked with sensitive-content warnings. And when one of his followers opens theirs, they might see exactly those things posted by Wahan himself. In addition to working as an oral surgeon, Wahan has garnered a large following on social media. You could say he’s a dental influencer—hold the lip-synching and skits, though. 

One video started it all: In a dental Facebook group, the Seattle-raised DMD and MD shared a niche cancer find that had been referred to him for a biopsy, zooming in on an image showing a slight tongue discoloration that turned out to be squamous cell carcinoma. He threw some music behind the video and (with the patient’s consent) sent it out to the internet. The response was overwhelming, as other medical professionals weighed in and shared. 

This was after Covid hit, when watercooler chats had moved online as communities shifted virtual. Before Covid, Wahan had taught third- and fourth-year dental students in lecture halls at the University of Washington School of Dentistry. He shifted some of those would-be lessons to Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, where a broader audience of dental and medical professionals, students, and even the curious, not-easily-grossed-out general public could join the conversation. 

It takes a full dental degree to really appreciate Wahan’s posts: mostly close-up videos of very specific procedures, with an outline of the techniques used. Many of the comments come in the form of technical follow-up questions from fellow dental professionals. 

Sure, the videos have the requisite blood and bones, but “it’s not just a bunch of shock and awe for people. It’s educational,” Wahan says. His 42,000-plus Instagram followers are “mostly dentists, specialists in the dental field,” Wahan notes, in addition to students or everyday people who find a peek behind the dentistry curtain to be cool. 

He follows other doctors and dentists himself, expanding his professional community and learning potential beyond the other four oral surgeons he works alongside in the office. He’ll often come across a new technique or tool and fire off a quick message: “‘Oh, what instrument is that?’...And they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, here’s a link for what I use,’” Wahan says.

His newest project capitalizes on that spirit of collaboration in a longer format than social media could muster. In 2024 he launched a podcast, and episodes have run the gamut: common medical emergencies in dental settings, sedation concerns with redheads (who may require more anesthesia) and cannabis users, or the nitty-gritty on how to treat jaw dislocations. 

Wahan describes the podcast as his “creative outlet,” where he can dive deep into a topic that interests him, or something new he read about in a journal. His day job extracting wisdom teeth or treating facial trauma (“Jaw fractures, lacerations, baseballs to the face, bats to the face, steering wheel, windshield, whatever it is,” he says. “We get a lot of dog-walking injuries. People walk their dogs, and then they trip.”) lends him endless inspiration. 

If all else fails, he can always pluck a topic from his DMs.