Meet Nurse Dolly, the internet’s new favorite children’s content creator
TheGrio...
Health children’s content creator Nurse Dolly gained 50,000 new followers after she went viral following a comparison to Ms. Rachel.
After this weekend, Nurse Dolly’s “Mini Med School” certainly has a few more attendees.
The children’s creator, who specializes in health education, gained over 50,000 followers over the weekend after a now-deleted post that initially compared her to and mildly denounced YouTube sensation Ms. Rachel started to trend.
“Hello Joe! Thank you so much for your support! 💕 I truly hope you and your family enjoy Mini Med School with Nurse Dolly,” the creator began in a reply before assuring the original poster he didn’t need to choose between her and Ms. Rachel.
“And we have to show some love to Ms. Rachel! She’s amazing,” she continued. “There’s more than enough love and screen time for everyone to support us both! 👩🏾⚕️💕🫶🏾”
Before long, much of the discourse had turned in this direction, with support for both women pouring in from many, including Tabitha Brown and Mychal Threets.
Of course, there’s plenty of room for both. Nurse Dolly, whose real name is Emari Etta-Tawo, has built “Mini Med School” around health education for young children, bringing something distinctly her own to the world of kids’ content. As her audience continues to grow, there’s more to discover about the real-life nurse suddenly all over everyone’s timelines and the colorful world she’s created for kids—and why one doesn’t need to compare her to anyone else.
Etta-Tawo, an Atlanta-based registered nurse, certified emergency nurse, and mom of two who works in emergency care at Emory, launched “Mini Med School with Nurse Dolly” in July 2025, bringing her medical background to a colorful series designed to make health and the human body fun and accessible for young audiences.
“I created this show because I believe every child deserves access to fun, engaging health education. My mission is to help kids build healthy habits, grow into healthy adults, feel confident in their bodies, and see positive representation in healthcare,” she wrote in the caption of a post on Instagram on July 29.
Dressed in her signature blue scrubs and white coat, Nurse Dolly sings and dances through lessons about the brain, sleep, handwashing, healthy habits, and the different parts and systems of the body. Other videos use stuffed animals, play, mini workouts, and medical equipment to help little ones understand doctor’s visits, checkups, and X-rays, while her “My Body Is Amazing” series breaks down how their bodies work.
The lessons extend well beyond her videos. Music from “Mini Med School” is available to stream on its own, and Etta-Tawo offers free printable worksheets families can use to keep learning after they’ve shut off their screens. The health professional is also offering a healthy dose of some decent representation. Black professionals are still sorely underrepresented in healthcare, so seeing her rise as one of the foremost in health content for children is meaningful. It won’t just show Black children what they can be, it will normalize that potential in others as well.
Given that—and how much the subject of her content differs from Ms. Rachel—is part of why the initial comparison that made her go viral over the weekend struck such a chord. While both women create educational content for young children and use plenty of music and play to do so, Ms. Rachel is known primarily for early language and developmental learning. Etta-Tawo’s content comes directly from her work in healthcare and focuses specifically on health, wellness, and the human body.
That distinction became a major part of the pushback as the original post spread along with frustration over the idea that celebrating Nurse Dolly required bringing up Ms. Rachel at all in the first place. Many called out the tendency to introduce Black talent through their proximity to a white counterpart rather than simply allowing what they’ve created to stand on its own. You know the, “Look! It’s the Black version of X,Y,Z.”
Plus, more than anything, the two creators are helping fill a void in engaging educational content for young children at a time when declining literacy and education rates underscore a growing need. In fact, that need is actually what led Etta-Tawo to create “Mini Med School.”
While watching children’s programming with her two sons, the nurse found plenty of videos teaching letters, colors, and shapes, but little that approached health, wellness, and the human body with the same kind of fun and accessibility.
“If I couldn’t find it,” she wrote in a post introducing her content online. “I figured other parents were looking for it, too.”