Why You Should Wear Earplugs At Concerts — & Other Useful Medical Advice From A TikTok-Famous GP From S'pore
Legit advice from a doctor. Sure beats Googling your symptoms.
Concert season is in full swing, and if you’re still not in your earplugs era, perhaps this Singaporean doctor’s advice may change your mind.
Dr Samuel, a general practitioner (GP) in Singapore, posted a TikTok explaining the harmful effects that loud events have on long-term hearing. Better known among TikTokers as GP Samuel, he stressed that “the best thing you can do for yourself” is to wear earplugs at concerts as most gigs, with noise levels of 104 to 112 decibels, far exceed the recommended limits of 75 to 80db.
Muffled hearing or ringing sounds in the ear after a concert “are signs of ear damage due to loud sounds”, explains Dr Samuel, a GP of over seven years. These could result in “hidden hearing loss [that] is a predictor for irreversible permanent hearing loss, which can start off with difficulty hearing in a noisy environment”.
If (free) medical advice like this has piqued your interest, you’ll be delighted to know that Samuel’s TikTok account is brimming with medical anecdotes and advice that are not only relatable, but strangely enjoyable to watch. Little wonder he has garnered 415K followers since posting his first video during the Covid-19 pandemic.
While he’s been a GP for seven years, Dr Samuel, who declines to reveal his age, has a keen interest in family practice dermatology and ophthalmology. Which explains why among his more popular videos are sunscreen and skincare tests where he uses a plethora of methods to judge the efficacy of products.
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READ MORE: How To Choose The Best Sunscreens For Singapore’s Climate
Just as popular is a series he's titled ‘New Fear Unlocked’, where he “highlights interesting medical cases and lessons you can learn so the same thing doesn’t happen to you”, he reminds viewers in these videos.
In particular, a case about a man in Florida who got hookworm infection from burying himself in sand at a beach has gone viral with over 16.5mil views.
He’s not just making these videos to scare you, okay? Dr Sam thoroughly researches each post and even provides citations from where he got his information from. Just how much research, we ask.
“A lot,” he tells 8days. “Each video can take four to eight hours, and I spend hours making sure I am responsible for what I put out and that the information is correct. I have come across cases about a pine tree growing in the lungs which would have been interesting, but I could not find any reliable scientific journals about it; and true enough, it turned out to be a hoax.
“It takes very long to find the right case as I pride myself in trawling through [online biomedical literature database] PubMed to find interesting cases to make videos about.”
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