, who goes by "Doctor Mike" on social media, is a board-certified family medicine physician at the Atlantic Health System's Overlook Medical Center in Summit, New Jersey. He's joined by Bianca Antisera, a traveling nurse, to play the classic slumber party game "Would You Rather."
Varshavski: Are you a fan?
Bianca Antisera: I'm a huge fan of Dr. House.
Varshavski: No way! I actually have his cell. Do you want me to call him? We can FaceTime him.
Antisera: I would literally die.
Varshavski: A game I grew up playing was "Would You Rather," but now we're taking it medical. We are having a competition between a doctor and a nurse. Welcome, Bianca Antisera to the channel.
Antisera: Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited. This is going to be awesome. I have to represent for all the nurses out there, especially the ER nurses. But here we are, so let's take down Dr. Mike.
Varshavski: Ooooh. You're not just a nurse. What else do you do on your spare time?
Antisera: I spend a lot of my time gaming. I spend a huge portion of my life, like ever since I was little. Like when my Dad came to America from Argentina, it was like sensory overload like with all the technology and stuff like that that we had here, so I very much so grew up around it. I do Twitch streams and I have been doing some TikToks and stuff like that.
Varshavski: B, I'm a doctor who games. You're a nurse who games. I think we should give the audience a challenge. You get this video to 100,000 likes, we're going to do a gaming video. A gaming showdown video.
Antisera: Oh, yeah.
Moderator: Would you rather wear a swimsuit at the hospital or scrubs at the beach?
Varshavski: Oh what?!
Antisera: I think I know the answer for both of us here.
Varshavski: Scrubs at the beach.
Antisera: Yeah!
Varshavski: I'd rather be labeled corny, rather than trying to flaunt something at work. That would be problematic.
Moderator: Would you rather wear the same pair of scrubs for the rest of your life or the same pair of underwear?
Varshavski: Ahh!
Antisera: That is really hard!
Varshavski: But if I wear the same set of scrubs, I can change my underwear? I think I would wear the same set of scrubs.
Antisera: I'd have to disagree with you there.
Varshavski: You would wear the same underwear?!
Antisera: This is the thing. This is my rationale. Both are disgusting and I don't recommend either, not that I would know from personal experience. However...
Varshavski: I don't think we need to clarify that. I think like, unanimously, universally, it's known to not wear your underwear for the rest of your life.
Antisera: Yes.
Varshavski: Or your scrubs.
Antisera: Yes. Okay, this is the thing. I have never, never gone home from a shift without something crazy on me and I mean...
Varshavski: Oh, that's a good point.
Antisera: Never. When you have, like, multiple like level one traumas and stuff like that coming in, I mean stuff is flying, literally flying across. At least if it's my underwear, it's my underwear. You know?
Moderator: Would you rather insert a catheter or remove a wad of hair from a clogged shower drain?
Varshavski: Ewww! You don't even know. Is it like a mouse in there or is it a hairball? I think a catheter is easier.
Antisera: I agree. I do them so often it's just like another part of my life, I guess. It's funny too because, like I said, I started in the OR and then I went into ER, so like that's always been like my specialty. I'm very good at them because I catheterize every patient.
Varshavski: Excuse me!
Antisera: I'm good at them and people will hunt me down on the unit if they have a difficult catheterization.
Moderator: Would you rather work a 24-hour shift or oversleep and be late for your shift?
Varshavski: Ooooh!
Antisera: Yeah. Easily I would do a 24-hour shift like versus being late. I am super funny about being on time and being where I'm supposed to be. The anxiety that would ensue from me being like late to a shift, I would never, ever, ever want to experience that again.
Varshavski: To me, after three years of residency, working 24 hours is no biggie. I am like you. I get so nervous when I oversleep.
Antisera: Yeah!
Varshavski: I literally break down. I feel like I let everyone down. I actually have bad dreams of missing my alarm clock so much so that if I have to wake up early in the morning for something important, I will wake up an hour before, thirty minutes before, twenty minutes before, and grab my phone. Did I oversleep? Did I oversleep?
Antisera: Yes!
Varshavski: When I totally didn't need to do that.
Moderator: Would you rather redo your medical education or redo high school?
Varshavski: Ugh!
Antisera: Oh!
Varshavski: High school all day. Med school, I think I handled well. High school, I could have done a lot better.
Antisera: I would redo high school. I get new nurses all the time asking... well, I shouldn't say new nurses... aspiring nurses, people who want to be nurses, "How was nursing school? How was this?" It's like, "Oh, my gosh. You poor soul. You poor soul." I would never want to do that again, I mean, ever. Ever, ever, ever. I would never want to go back to...
Varshavski: Do you think you came out of nursing school ready to be a nurse or did you think you needed a lot of guidance?
Antisera: Oh no.
Varshavski: Oh no.
Antisera: No, I don't think any nurse has ever... Yeah. No, no, no, no. I don't think any nurse is ever going to come out of nursing school fully prepared. I think the most important thing is having a preceptor that you trust. Because we have a huge issue like in nursing to begin with where we say that nurses eat our young, and it's crazy.
Varshavski: Is that a real saying?
Antisera: That is a real thing.
Varshavski: What does that mean?
Antisera: It's a real thing. It's like, when nurses come in, it's almost like... I don't want to say hazing, but it's like they go after these nurses. They're not welcoming. They're not... they just treat nurses very bad. We even, at every hospital that I've been at, it has been...
Varshavski: Who is they? You're not talking about us, right?
Antisera: No, I'm talking about nurses. Nurses versus nurses.
Moderator: Would you rather receive treatment from a med student or a retired doctor?
Varshavski: A retired doctor. A retired doctor is experienced. Even though the knowledge might not be the most up to date, it's going to be better than a med student. At the same time, if it is a doctor of like radiology, I don't know how useful that would be in terms of like my general health.
Antisera: I'd have to go with the same thing. I'd have to say a retired doctor. I guess it depends on like how long they've been retired for. But if you're in the same mindset
Varshavski: 65 years. They retired at age 30.
Antisera: Medicine is not cookie-cutter. Like you could have the knowledge down, but like the experiences are going to be like, "No, I'm telling you like this is not going to work out this way." You know?
Moderator: Would you rather treat a rude, ungrateful patient or treat a patient with a difficult helicopter parent or family member?
Varshavski: Ooh.
Antisera: I would rather treat a difficult patient. I don't feel like anybody is difficult for the sake of being difficult. I think that we all have varying experiences and situations as of what led them here. I'm thinking to the ER, so what brought you in to constitute this emergency. This may be the most frightening thing that you have ever experienced in your life. If you can get to the root of not only why they're there at the ER, but also instill a trust in them, that they trust you, that you know what you're talking about, that you genuinely do care about them, I think it's usually human nature that somebody is going to be more receptive to you.
Varshavski: Whoa whoa whoa. You can't flip the patient who's rude and ungrateful. They are forever rude and ungrateful in this scenario. The helicopter parent is forever helicopter parent in this scenario.
Antisera: I still am going to go with like the difficult patient.
Varshavski: If no matter what I do, they're going to be rude and ungrateful, do I want it to be the family member or the patient? I think the family member. We can take them out of the situation momentarily. The times where it gets tricky is in the pediatric space...
Antisera: Yes, oh my goodness. Yes.
Varshavski: ... is when I'm taking care of kids and then the parents are really, let's say, nervous or have gotten some bad advice, perhaps, or even vaccine-hesitant. Those are scenarios that are really difficult to grapple with.
Moderator: Would you rather travel back in time to treat patients with the bubonic plague or treat soldiers wounded during the Civil War?
Varshavski: Did we even have ways to treat people for the bubonic plague? I feel like everyone just died. You were probably dying alongside your patients.
Antisera: Yeah! Like that's where that whole mask and the crow and stuff comes in. They would keep the herbs in the beak and then they wore wax-coated cloaks. You know how when you go into a room and it's like the smell of sickness, shall I say, like infection and stuff like that?
Varshavski: Yeah.
Antisera: They called it the miasma and so they thought that that cloak was going to prevent the miasma from getting them.
Varshavski: Since you just gave like a really fun fact about bubonic plague outfits, when you were fighting in battle in the Civil War, it was actually advised by high generals that you have clean uniforms. Because if you were ever to be shot, it would then take the clothing and get it inside your wound. Thereby, if it's dirty and it has like fungus, or bacteria on it, you could actually have a much worse infection than die from your gunshot wound.
Moderator: Would you rather do charts and notes or do your taxes?
Varshavski: Oh! You can't do a tie? Can you do a tie? I don't think a tie is acceptable. I would say taxes. I hate administrative work. Even notes is hard for me. But at least when I'm doing the notes, I'm at least thinking about my patients and something medical. But taxes is like the worst version of notes.
Antisera: I actually would say I'd prefer to chart than to do my taxes. I think I'm part of one of the very small minority that I enjoy a very well-written note. Not saying that anybody else's notes are not well-written, but...
Varshavski: Yeah, you are saying that. Don't take it back. You're throwing the shade.
Antisera: I know that like when I read this note that I put, you know exactly why they came in, why they're here, like what's going on. I can paint you a picture. I don't know, I don't mind it as much as some other people do.
Moderator: Would you rather become Hugh Laurie's primary care physician or receive treatment from Dr. House?
Varshavski: Oh.
Antisera: Have you seen any of my TikToks? Because like literally all of my TikToks are about Dr. House and this has blown me away.
Varshavski: Really? Are you a fan?
Antisera: I'm a huge fan of Dr. House.
Varshavski: No way! I actually have his cell, do you want me to call him? We could FaceTime him.
Antisera: I would literally die.
Varshavski: Wait, you want me to add him to the Zoom?
Antisera: Dude, I would die. I would die.
Varshavski: I'm not that cool. I don't have access to House.
Antisera: I would die.
Varshavski: I want to be in charge of his life. I want to get him off of the drugs that he's on. I want to treat him holistically.
Antisera: I would receive treatment from Dr. House, all day long.
Varshavski: Really?
Antisera: All day long.
Varshavski: He like experiments on his patients all the time. He'll like... so someone will come in with a fever and chills, and he will be like make sure they don't have bubonic plague. Expose them to this. I'm like, "No, just can you not?"
Antisera: He could tell me to walk into fire and I would do it.
Varshavski: B, thank you for playing "Would You Rather" medical edition, doctor vs. nurse. I still don't know why there is a versus. We're not playing against each other. Where can people follow you?
Antisera: Thank you so much for having me, first off, and I think the nurses won here clearly anyways, even though it wasn't a competition. But, I would say you can follow me on Instagram at @BiancaAntisera, Twitch: BiancaAntisera, and also on my TikTok: BiancaAntisera. I will eventually be doing some YouTube videos here, just working on some editing, but that's coming up in the future too. I would love it if you guys swung by and said hi.
Varshavski: If you want to see some gaming videos that I have done in the past, Overwatch APEX, they're right here. As always, stay happy and healthy.
Varshavski's educates over 3 million subscribers with two weekly shows covering everything from trending medical stories and health myths to reaction videos critiquing popular medical TV dramas. His goal is to expose medical misinformation and increase health literacy for a previously untapped audience of young adults.