Views of human biology busting clips triple during COVID

Dr Matt Barton teaching the identification of breath sounds on his YouTube channel.

Griffith’s star biology experts Dr Mike Todorovic and Dr Matthew Barton continue to prove popular as their YouTube channel hits more than 100,000 subscribers.

The channel — Dr Matt and Dr Mike — takes complex topics about human biology and delivers them in short, easy to digest videos.

Dr Matt Barton and Dr Mike Todorovic

Dr Todorovic, a senior lecturer in Griffith’s School of Nursing and Midwifery, said their views had tripled since the start of COVID-19, with a jaw-dropping 47,000 views of their videos every 48 hours.

From April to November, subscriber numbers also doubled from 50,000 to 100,000.

“It’s amazing,” Dr Todorovic said.

“Students all around the world will tell us what concepts are most difficult for them and we then endeavour to create simple and engaging, yet detailed videos on those topics.”

The health expert said he believed the channel’s success was due to its simplicity.

“We love the quote from Albert Einstein, ‘Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler’,” he said.

“The videos are very rough and ready, made in front of a whiteboard with no editing, and no fancy animations or sound effects.

“It shows the viewer that if we can do it, so can they.”

The duo came up with the idea for Dr Matt and Dr Mike after they realised it was a struggle for students to stay focused during traditional two-hour lectures.

“We would review our Lecture Capture viewing statistics and saw that a significant number of students weren’t watching the last 30-60 minutes of the lecture,” Dr Todorovic said.

“This was worrying as the information covered in the last 60 minutes is just as important as the information in the first.”

So instead, Dr Barton and Dr Todorovic broke their lectures up into distinct learning outcomes and covered them in short “concept captured” videos, which were uploaded to YouTube.

“Our students loved them, and soon, so did students from all around the world,” Dr Todorovic said.

“We have viewers of all ages, covering every continent of the planet.”

Their audience is primarily made up of students studying health science, including medicine, nursing, paramedicine, physiotherapy, biochemistry, nutrition and high school biology.

Recently, Dr Barton and Dr Todorovic recorded a number of short videos for fellow educational channel Simple Nursing, which has more than 340,000 subscribers on its YouTube Channel.

Also recording their own podcast — Dr Matt and Dr Mike’s Medical Podcast — and with weekly appearances on ABC radio with a segment How the body works, the pair are clearly passionate about what they do.

“The human body is both weird and wonderful — there are endless structures and processes to talk about!”