Dr. Michelle Bravo, a doctor who resigned from the University of Miami’s Miller Center, sees what other neurologists might miss. That’s how she saved a 21-year-old’s life during her first years as an assistant professor.
When a young man was about to be sent home after the primary medical team found nothing wrong with him, Bravo and her student resident asked for more tests. One CT scan later, they discovered he actually had lymphoma, a cancer that attacks brain nerves.
Bravo thought she’d have more moments like this at UM. Then, on Sept. 11, 2025, while she was in Brazil for the 22nd International Headache Congress, she was informed that an Instagram repost concerning Charlie Kirk that she had made on her public account had gone viral.
She resigned from UM two days later.
“My whole life was turned upside down after that post,” Bravo said in an interview with The Hurricane. Yet, the post also introduced her to a world of supporters, whose kind messages helped her get a new job.
Her Sept. 11 repost showed an X tweet from @zei_squirrel made on Sept. 10, the day Kirk died after being shot while addressing an audience at Utah Valley University.
It read, “What was done to Charlie Kirk has been done to countless Palestinian babies, children, girls, boys, women and men not just over the past two years of the ongoing genocide, but decades. And whenever it happened, and it’s on camera and we all saw it, Charlie Kirk came out to say: I love this, I want more of this. The people who did this are great and I love them and they should keep doing it forever. As Malcolm said, the chickens have come home to roost.”
But then, Stop Antisemitism, a nonprofit group, found her story. The organization advocates for people they claim are antisemitic to be fired from their jobs, including YouTuber and preschool teacher Ms. Rachel and New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mandami.
Stop Antisemitism condemned the post to its 593,000 followers on its social media pages with a picture of Bravo, her Instagram account and the caption, “How can this woman be entrusted with patients?”
As of the time of this reporting, its Instagram post has 10,700 likes and X tweet has more than a million views. The posts have a combined total of more than four thousand comments.
“@flgovrondesantis please make sure @umiamimedicine doesn’t allow Dr. Michelle Bravo to practice medicine,” Instagram user @mamalaz33 said under Stop Antisemitism’s post. “She promotes political assassination. No patient should be left in her “care”.”
Most commenters asked for Bravo to be fired and say they’re waiting to see how the University will respond.
“Hey @UMiamiHealth and @umiamimedicine,” X user @geraldpostner said under Stop Antisemitism’s tweet. “for those of us who live in South Florida, you are going to lose the trust of a LOT of patients if you make us feel unsafe because one of your physicians hates Israelis, Jews, Zionists, and admirers of Charlie Kirk. Take some action!”
Bravo and her husband dealt with death threats, doxing and cruel messages the next day. When they returned from Brazil, they decided to move away from South Florida for their safety.
“Michelle was blindsided, and it was clear she felt an enormous weight of fear, loss and confusion,” Bravo’s husband, who wished to remain unnamed, said.
Bravo doesn’t regret reposting the X tweet, she only regrets seeing how it was misunderstood.
“I’m apologetic that people interpreted it negatively,” Bravo said. “It was never my intent to endorse or condone violence.”
Despite the fallout, Bravo still sympathizes with the tweet. She sees her advocacy as another part of being a physician.
“I took a hippocratic oath to never do harm, to take care of people’s lives. That’s my role as a physician,” Bravo said. “But as physicians, we still have to stand up for social inequities and injustices that happen.”
Bravo is a vocal supporter of Palestinians as bombings in Gaza continue to take more than 69,000 lives according to Gaza health officials.
She knew Kirk had claimed “Palestine doesn’t exist” when discussing its independence from Israel. Still, wanting to be well-informed across politics, Bravo would tune into his debates.
“The idea of having discourse that he promoted is actually a good thing,” Bravo said.
Bravo was shocked and upset when the news about his death broke. But another headline also grabbed her attention.
On Sept. 10 in Colorado around the same time Kirk was shot, a 16-year-old armed with a revolver walked into Evergreen High School during lunchtime and shot and killed two students. Bravo found it harder to find updates about the Evergreen shooting as the Kirk situation kept developing.
“Why aren’t we also talking about other people that have also died because of gun violence recently?” Bravo said. “I started to see the selective empathy in people.”
Bravo wanted to be part of a change that connects Kirk’s assassination to a bigger picture about the overall growth of gun violence in the world, from Israel to Colorado. @zei_squirrel’s X tweet gave her that opportunity.
“[The tweet] made me think about the kids in Colorado,” Bravo said. “It made me think about all these horrific images that I’ve seen of Palestinian children being shot and burned alive.”
Bravo shared it with her Instagram followers, which were mostly family and friends, to “promote more humanity” and “open people’s eyes.” Her post reached far more eyes than expected.
“Other people found out about [the viral repost] before I found out about it,” Bravo said. “I was horrified to learn that what was intended to be a private story was just shared among the masses.”
She feared for her reputation, livelihood and career as she talked through her anxiety with her husband and therapists while she was still in Brazil.
Bravo went to sleep that night not knowing what would come next. There was nothing to do but wait to see how the University would respond. To protect her career, Bravo ultimately chose to resign.
@zei_squirrel never thought their words could be the reason someone gets harassed online or fear for their life.
“I feel terrible that my words were used against Mrs. Bravo,” @zei_squirrel said. “I hope she will challenge this act of blatant censorship that violates core free-speech principles.”
Bravo left Brazil on Saturday night wondering if she was part of a database filled with people who criticized Kirk after his death.
“I don’t know if my address was online and someone’s going to be waiting to kill me,” Bravo said. “Those were all the thoughts I had, I was terrified.”
Bravo and her husband came home just to leave. They said goodbye to their time in South Florida, a time that’s now marked by fear, trauma and tears.
“This was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life,” Bravo said. “And for people to have those thoughts of me as being a violent person or anti semitic, it’s just not true.”
An outpouring of love from friends, patients and strangers she got hours later helped her remember she’s the same exceptional physician her husband tells her she is.
“There was a grieving process,” Bravo’s husband said. “But with time, support, and distance from the online hostility, she began to reconnect with her confidence, joy and sense of self.”
Former patients, like Teresa Liberatore, left supportive comments on the same platform many used to leave hateful words for Bravo.
“My initial assessment with an ER doctor was insufficient and laughably mediocre, and he deemed my medical episode evidence of Bell’s Palsy,” Liberatore said. “After Dr. Bravo’s medical examination, she accurately pre-diagnosed me with an MS pseudo exacerbation. Her sharp and exemplary talent and patient care during my experience cannot be understated.”
Bravo’s sharp instincts and care for her patients was noticed by a large medical institution when she was applying for a new job. When she was interviewed, she explained what had happened and left feeling uncertain. Days later, she was hired for the clinic’s headache division.
“There’s a renewed sense of purpose and excitement to return to doing what she loves most: taking care of patients,” Bravo’s husband said. “She’s stronger, more centered and ready to move forward without letting this experience define her.”
Bravo wanted to open her followers’ eyes to humanity with her repost. In the end, she saw some of the best and worst of humanity.
“What [some people online] wanted didn’t happen, I got another job, I’m successful, I’m happy,” Bravo said. “We have to continue to be successful. We need to continue to advocate for the things that we know are right.”
