Doctor gives skin tips in TikTok videos, but here's why his 400k followers seldom see his full face
SINGAPORE — General practitioner (GP) Samuel Choudhury has amassed a vast 400,000 followers on TikTok through his account "skingapore", but what is curious about them is that most of his videos feature only the left half of his face.
Dr Sam — as he prefers to be known — is now a natural in front of the camera as he shares content on medical matters and health, but he told TODAY how his acne scars had initially made him insecure about how he looked.
The scars, which are barely visible to the casual observer, are from an aesthetic treatment that left complications on the right side of his face, which is why he prefers to show mainly the left half of his face in his videos.
“I suffered since (my time in the) army because of camo(uflage) that gave me very bad acne. And then throughout medical school, acne also caused a lot of confidence issues,” he said.
He went through bouts of acne treatment to treat the condition, which thankfully did not return, he added.
After that, he underwent an aesthetic procedure to try to get rid of a scar on the right side of his face but the treatment caused more complications.
“The complications from the procedure happened when I first started my TikTok journey and it affected my confidence a bit because I had to be on camera," he said.
Over time, though, exposure on the video-sharing platform gradually helped to boost his confidence and made him more comfortable in his own skin.
“It was only one year after I started TikTok that I didn’t use filters on my videos because I just felt like it was not worth the hassle. So after a while, I started to accept that and move on."
CONTENT INSPIRED BY HIS EXPERIENCE AS A GP
The educational videos that Dr Sam shares deal with a range of medical and health matters, with a focus perhaps unsurprisingly on skincare, as well as eye health.
Some content such as his “New Fear Unlocked” series — where he outlines instructive medical cases so that his followers can avoid committing the same medical mistakes — has racked up more than a million views.
His most popular video to date, about a teenager in the United States who contracted hookworms after burying himself in sand on a Florida beach, has a whopping 16.5 million views.
In his day job as a GP in family medicine, Dr Sam deals with patients grappling with illnesses ranging from menstrual cramps and diarrhoea to chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
Working on the medical frontline gives him some ideas on the content he puts out on TikTok.
“Usually I would drive in silence and I would think to myself, ‘Okay, what happened today in the clinic that was interesting? What did patients ask me, or what were they shocked by?’
"If somebody questioned me about (something), then it means probably a lot of people have the same concerns, then I would do a video about it,” he said.
“Being a GP gives me the opportunity to talk about everything, because you need to know everything. Breadth of (knowledge on) medicine is very important as a GP.”
To create a video, Dr Sam said that he can spend six to eight hours solely on research to ensure that the information he puts out is factual and accurate.
Filming the video takes up to 45 minutes, while the final editing takes up two hours.
“Most of the effort comes from preparation to ensure that the content is accurate. There were times when I would do a story and realise that, ‘Oh, this article is a hoax’ and I had to scrap it.”
BEFRIENDING A HATER AND HELPING OTHERS
In his journey as a content creator, Dr Sam has had his share of interesting encounters with his followers, including his haters.
Talking about how he would look through the comments on all his videos for feedback, Dr Sam recounted the case of one user who would "post a long reply every time (I) posted about skincare".
"I could tell that he knew what he was saying and he probably works in the industry."
Dr Sam said that he later attended an event and introduced himself to a makeup artist who was promoting a skincare line, who then told Dr Sam that he was the user who had been leaving those comments on his videos.
“After that, we went out for coffee, then we talked about it, and now we’re friends,” Dr Sam said, adding that his hater-turned-friend would also take him to beauty product store Sephora to pick out makeup products.
When he receives messages from his followers thanking him, Dr Sam said that he feels a sense of fulfilment, citing the example of a video he made about the dangers of feeding honey to infants aged under a year old.
A grandmother sent him a message thanking him for the video, saying that she was not aware of this and would forward the video to her family to ensure that the boy did not eat honey.
Dr Sam said: “All these messages and comments would make me feel like it was the right decision to make these videos and I’ll be motivated to find more interesting things to make content.
“When I see the content that I put out is having an impact on the lives of people around the world, it is very fulfilling and meaningful because this is the definition of public health, whereby I can have an impact on the lives of people beyond my clinic. This is the wonderful invention of social media."