Dr. Miami's Social Media Manager, Santina, Breaks Silence on Why She Had to Leave
Dr. Miami continually told Santina she needed arm lipo. And that's not even the worst of it.
Published April 16 2026, 3:33 p.m. ET
Florida-based plastic surgeon "Dr. Miami" has 1.4 million followers on Instagram and 3.3 million followers on TikTok, making him somewhat of an internet celebrity. The viral videos he posts have helped him expand his client list and bring in more business, and they have even earned him a Discovery+ docuseries. However, the person behind all the engagement and followers, Santina or "Sanrizzle," says she was not compensated fairly for all of her hard work.
In a multi-part TikTok video series, Santina explained the myriad reasons she felt manipulated into staying at Dr. Miami's office, and what ultimately led her to quit.
Santina, Dr. Miami's social media manager, didn't feel compensated fairly for her work.
In a video explainer, Santina said that she was only 22 when she started working at Dr. Miami's office, so she didn't have a lot of work experience. She was hired to be half administrative assistant and half social media manager, and she was paid $25 an hour. After her video ideas started going viral, she moved into doing just social media.
Santina explained that she was having a difficult time in her personal life and that she needed to get a new place. She realized that $40k a year wouldn't cut it, so she asked for a raise. She explained that she raised their follower count and engagement numbers an impressive amount in just a year and did great PR work for Dr. Miami since he had a negative public image before she came on board. They refused to give her a raise.
Eventually, they agreed to let Santina only come in three days a week but produce the same number of videos. They called it a raise, but they didn't give her more money. And because she was part-time, she lost full-time benefits like health insurance and a 401(k).
Even more shocking is the fact that the practice asked Santina not to tell others that she got a "raise" because she was making more than other employees who had been with them for more than 10 years.
Santina said that Dr. Miami would pay other doctors $5,000 to $15,000 a day to film content at the office, but she didn't get any share of that. She also said that he proposed they sell her ideas to other doctors and give her just a percentage of the earnings.
Dr. Miami's personality was a big reason Santina left.
In another video, Sanrizzle said that Dr. Miami had an "erratic" personality, with no concept of good or bad. She said that he just wanted attention and money, and he didn't care how he got those things.
One of the most shocking stories she told was the one about Dr. Miami telling her she needed liposuction surgery on her arms. The first time he brought it up, she laughed it off. However, she says that he brought it up again and again, which made her self-conscious.
She eventually began going to CrossFit with the practice manager, Rosy, with whom she had a complicated friendship. They would measure her arms in the office, and Dr. Miami allegedly continually told her that she should just get lipo since the workouts weren't getting results. Eventually, she did get the surgery. Her arms were burning the day after, but Dr. Miami asked her to travel with him and Rosy for a work project.
Santina said that she could tell she needed to drain her arms, but Dr. Miami brushed it off and made her wait until the end of the day to get care. After that, she had to work for 48 hours straight, not getting any overtime or a daily rate.
Santina said of Dr. Miami, "You don’t see me as a human being capable of experiencing physical pain. And that is a crazy thing, not just as my employer but as my doctor."
It seems that Santina felt Dr. Miami was constantly trying to take advantage of her work and undermine her needs as a human and as an employee. When she started making money from her own videos, he asked her to post them on his channel instead. When she said no, he argued with her about it every day for a week. Santina explained that she felt demoralized and frustrated.
The social media manager explained that she didn't want to say anything bad about Dr. Miami at the time because she didn't want to hurt the people around him, like his family. She said that Rosy continually had to do "emotional clean-up" jobs and convince her to stay after Dr. Miami upset her.