There are three “laws” for successful TikTok posts: make people laugh, tell a personal story people can empathize with, or teach people something. Doctors use the platform to talk about their career paths; nurses use TikTok to record dancing routines during the breaks in their shifts. There’s an MRI image explanatory channel, and specialists from a broad spectrum talk about their expertise or give insight into their working environment. 

MD candidates from the US Amanda d’Almeida and Dan Villavecer are the faces behind Medicine Explained. Medicine Explained is a channel with over 1.1 million of followers, explaining everyday issues such a “What is a brain freeze? How do menstrual cups work? What is scoliosis? Can women exercise, bathe or swim during their period?” etc. Dan and Amanda started creating content as a way to fight medical misinformation on the internet. Medicine Explained was started to decentralize medical information by making it understandable to everyone, acting as preventative health education to people around the world who may never have access to proper healthcare, but have access to social media. 

In less than 6 months, the TikTok channel has amassed over 1.1 million followers and over 100 million views worldwide. The hashtag #MedicineExplained has over 100 Million views on the platform. 

Dan and Amanda don’t show their faces but use drawings to get their point across.  

Dan Villavecer is a current Doctor of Medicine (MD) candidate in the US, where he is the President of Medical Entrepreneurship. He received his Masters of Science in Cellular and Molecular Biology. Prior to starting his medical education, he worked at Forward (goforward.com) in San Francisco, which was among the first primary care practice providers with a truly patient-centered design, at Forward doctors sit next to the patient in the doctor’s office, not behind the computer screen etc. Forward is an exemplary case of how the doctor-patient relationship can look like in the modern era and was listed as a Top 25 Inventions of 2017 by Time Magazine for reinventing primary care. Amanda d’Almeida is a current dual Doctor of Medicine (MD) and Master of Public Health (MPH) candidate. She was part of Nature published Beat AML program, which created the largest-to-date dataset on primary acute myeloid leukemia (AML) samples offering genomic, clinical, and drug response data. Amanda and Dan currently also work as interns at Lumos - AI-powered search tool for doctors that gives direct answers to clinical questions, using trustworthy sources. In this discussion, you will hear more about their thinking. They offered insight into the current state of medical education, their creative process, content strategy on TikTok and more.

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