In this article an infectious diseases pharmacist reflects on his experience using TikTok as an educational tool for teaching bugs and drugs.
Authored By: Timothy P. Gauthier, Pharm.D., BCPS, BCIDP
AI-generated summary: “An infectious diseases pharmacist reflects on his early experience using TikTok to educate about antimicrobial pharmacotherapy, highlighting the platform’s potential to reach new audiences despite a steep learning curve and production demands. He found that building a focused professional community was harder than expected due to TikTok’s algorithm favoring viral, mainstream content over niche education. Despite these challenges and concerns over platform manipulation, he views TikTok as a promising and creatively fulfilling tool for teaching, provided one stays mindful of its influence and limitations.” -ChatGPT
Article posted 29 May 2025
As a passionate infectious diseases and antimicrobial stewardship pharmacist I have been using social media for about a decade to bring tidbits of antimicrobial pharmacotherapy to the masses via the @IDstewardship accounts. It has been an amazing experience to connect with people from around the world on Facebook (24K followers), Instagram (39K followers), X (38K followers), Bluesky, LinkedIn, and a few other platforms. Each platform has changed considerably over time and offered the chance to reach a different audience, which has brought both pros and cons.
As for TikTok, I had not invested too much energy into the platform historically primarily because it seemed too time consuming to learn how to produce decent content. An additional hesitation was that my social media strategy has rarely included having myself on video, but TikTok pretty much forces you to be on camera. These barriers noted, I was curious about my wife’s enthusiasm for TikTok over Instagram and the opportunity to reach a new audience was appealing. So, I decided to give TikTok a whirl.
Ahead of jumping into using TikTok as an educational tool for teaching bugs & drugs I did some homework. This included talking to a few people who might be described as “TikTok enthusiasts” as well as listening to a variety of podcasts about the TikTok algorithm and content creator strategies. I also scoped out some of the popular pharmacists on TikTok (e.g., @MillenialRx, @PhilIsMyPharmacist) to see what strategies they were using.
At this point it has been just under 2 months of posting regularly to TikTok, with all of the posts focusing on antibiotics and clinical pharmacy. In this time the @IDstewardship TikTok audience has grown by ~ 2.5K followers and ~13K likes, two of the key face-up profile metrics on this platform.
Before going into it I had some expectations, but did they match my experience? That is discussed here.
Note that I am not claiming to be a TikTok expert after 2 months of use, but given my significant experience with social media, perhaps some of my reflections will hold some weight.
Expectation 1: The learning curve for TikTok content creation would be considerable
Reality: Mostly true.
Making a few practice videos and trying to click as many of the buttons in the app as I could has been helpful for learning my way around but also a bit overwhelming because there are so many options. It is clear that TikTok creators who regularly consume TikTok content are best placed to identify which tools to use in which circumstances.
Historically I have found that it is very difficult to have the bandwidth to be both a regular creator and consumer of social media content. I know that good content can be made while focusing mostly on content creation, but it is readily apparent that jumping on trends and adapting to the demands of the ever-changing algorithm is really important if you want to be a true TikTok master.
TikTok gives higher value to videos with better production (e.g., better lighting or audio quality). Doing voice-over, developing choreography, or collecting a string of videos can be time consuming. The CapCut app is something a lot of TikTokers are using, but I still have not yet found the time to explore it.
Expectation 2: The people in the clinical pharmacy space on TikTok would be easy to find
Reality: Mostly false
While there are some really great TikTok accounts that share information about clinical pharmacy content, the platform has two major areas that I think hinder it from being better.
First, TikTok is not as follower-centric as Instagram is now, or as Facebook once was. Each video on TikTok is its own microcosm. Just because you have one TikTok video with 1M views or you have 5M followers, does not mean all of your videos are going to have a ton of engagement. On one hand that is good for the content consumer who gets a better stream of higher quality content on their “for you page” (FYP), but on the other hand it can make it more difficult for creators to build and reach their niche TikTok community.
Second, TikTok really pushes people creating content to try to go viral. They often offer suggestions on what tools and strategies to use through the system notifications or FYP areas. As a content creator, I feel like it is trying to manipulate me to create content for the masses rather than to stay true to myself and my primary goal of teaching about bugs and drugs in a professional manner for healthcare learners. From my perspective, this causes some of the major pharmacist accounts on TikTok to be more diluted and lower quality than what I was hoping to see, from an educational perspective. Not that they are low quality overall, just that their target audience and community who they are seeking to is more diluted than I had expected to find.
It is also possible that I just have not found my way to the right accounts yet. Although I did ask in a video for suggestions on who to follow. This has over 2k views and 60 likes, but only 3 pharmacist accounts were mentioned in the comments.
Expectation 3: TikTok would try to manipulate me as a content creator
Reality: True
Most people on social media are content consumers, especially in the pharmacist space. I see you lurkers! But I have love for you too, do not fret, LOL. The algorithms try to manipulate consumers to increase use of the app and overall engagement. It is often fairly overt, but over the years it has gotten more and more subtle. The same happens as a content creator. The goal of the app is to increase engagement to generate more advertisement revenue potential and TikTok clearly wants to tell creators what to do to maximize the chances for going viral, as mentioned above.
I use social media to share my passion and as a creative outlet. Once creating content feels like work, all the fun is taken out of it. The manipulation from Meta for example has been disheartening. They used a bait-and-switch strategy with their Facebook Pages, where years ago I could get tons of organic reach, but now there is almost no organic reach and they want you to pay them to reach your own followers. In turn, I invest less time putting content on Facebook in recent years.
One example from TikTok is the push for creators to do more LIVE videos. I have explored using the LIVE option, but it is not something I really want to use much. Meanwhile, TikTok alerts me of things such as if I “go LIVE for 19 more minutes on another 2 separate days” I can unlock more traffic and more app features. At least they are using a carrot method and not a stick method.
Manipulation from these social media platforms is to be expected. I think the important thing is to maintain awareness about it so it can be continuously navigated. Like the saying goes: If you do not control your social media, your social media will control you.
Expectation 4: The data and analytics on TikTok would be top-tier
Reality: Neutral/ mixed
TikTok puts “viewers” face-up on the posts. For example I had one video about things I would not do given my experience as an infectious diseases pharmacist that had a decent reach. This 125 second video currently has 139K views which seems like a lot, but the analytics tells me only 3.4% of viewers watched the full video and the average watch time was just 50 seconds, not even half of the recording. Essentially the views is more like impressions, which really is a misleading and inflated metric.
In terms of analytics about specific posts, TikTok does offer some high quality data. This includes basics like sex, geographic location, age group. It also tells you at what point in the video the user hit the like button,
So on one hand there are a lot of good data in the analytics for me to use and I think TikTok out-does Instagram in this area. While on the other hand, the face-up view count on TikTok is what I would consider to be of lower quality and more “fluffy” than something such as the like count on Instagram.
As an aside but notably, when entering TikTok the videos automatically play audio. Having to hear my own voice when I want to check the analytics on a video has been pretty annoying. Does anyone really enjoy hearing themselves speak on a recording?!?!
Closing comments
Overall TikTok as an educational tool for teaching bugs and drugs has been a mostly positive experience. It is fun to experiment with the tools, connect with new people, and learn more about how to improve my skills as an educator. I do think it is helping people to gain additional perspectives and I feel it is important that teachers need to try to reach learners where they are.
While there are certainly some pitfalls to beware, I look forward to using TikTok more as a creative outlet in the months to come.
Follow @IDstewardship on TikTok today!
RECOMMENDED TO YOU
