Dr. Iris Thiele Isip-Tan

Dr. Iris Thiele Isip Tan is a professor at the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Medicine, Chief of the UP Medical Informatics Unit (MIU), Director of the UP Manila Interactive Learning Center and Chair of the UP Manila Telehealth Committee. She is a practicing internist endocrinologist with a master's degree in Health Informatics. Her research interests include medical education, mobile health, consumer health informatics, infodemic management, and telehealth. Dr. Isip-Tan believes in the scholarly use of social media and is currently enrolled as a PhD student in Health Sciences by research, with her work focused on diabetes self-management on Facebook. She was the first recipient of the UP System Gawad Pangulo Award for Progressive Teaching & Learning in 2015. She completed the World Health Organization global infodemic manager training in the inaugural batch of 2020. In 2021, she was recognized by the Metrobank Foundation as an Outstanding Filipino. She blogs at www.endocrine-witch.net and is known as Dok Bru on Facebook and Youtube, posting in Filipino about diabetes, thyroid and other endocrine disorders. She co-founded the first Filipino healthcare-related tweet chat #HealthXPH. In 2014, she received the Philippine College of Physicians Presidential Award for Social Media Advocacy. Her blog won Best Blog Post of the Year and People's Choice Award for Health & Fitness at 2015 Philippine Blogging Awards. She also received the Health Exemplar Award for Health Communications from Health & Lifestyle magazine in 2017