Nobody searches for your job title
General surgery has a branding problem that cardiology or dermatology does not: the name of the specialty means nothing to patients. A man in Riyadh with a painful lump near his tailbone does not type 'general surgeon'. He types the symptom, often misspelled, often at night, often in the Najdi words he uses with his brothers. A woman in Jeddah with bleeding after childbirth searches for the condition she suspects, and adds 'female doctor' because she will not see a man for it.
That changes what a personal brand means for you. You cannot be known for 'surgery'. You can be known as the surgeon in Khobar who explains piles without embarrassment, or the one in Riyadh whom young men send each other for a pilonidal sinus, or the one in Jeddah who tells you honestly whether your gallstones need anything at all.
The good news is that these searches are specific, frequent and poorly answered. Most of what patients find is either a hospital page listing procedures or a clinic advert for 'laser'. A calm surgeon explaining, in Saudi Arabic, what the condition is, what can be tried first and when an operation makes sense has very little real competition.
Two kinds of patient: the one from the emergency room and the one who chose you
A good share of your work arrives without any choice at all. The appendix at three in the morning, the obstructed hernia, the abscess: the patient gets whoever is on call. Branding does nothing for that moment, but it shapes what happens after. A family that was treated kindly, kept informed and given a clear discharge plan remembers your name, and a Google review written by a grateful son a week later is read by the next person deciding between two surgeons in your hospital.
The second kind of patient is the one you can actually win: the elective case. Gallstones that flare every few weeks, a hernia that has been there for a year, haemorrhoids someone has put up with since their twenties. These patients have time to research, and many have an insurance card that gives them a choice between several hospitals in the network. Within that choice, they pick the doctor whose name they have heard.
Cash patients behave differently again. They compare clinics, ask for a price on WhatsApp first, and are quick to try the newest day-surgery centre with an offer. Your content should help them compare well: what a fair quote includes, what follow-up looks like, and why the operation is only part of the treatment.
The embarrassing conditions, said out loud
- Bleeding after the toilet: three common causes and the one you should not ignore
- Fissure or piles? How patients confuse them and why it matters
- What actually happens in a proctology examination, explained before you come
Pilonidal sinus for young men
- Why it keeps coming back after it was drained
- Open wound or closed repair: what each means for your next six weeks
- Long drives, long sitting, and hair: what you can change after surgery
Gallbladder decisions
- Stones found by chance on an ultrasound: do you need anything?
- The pain after kabsa: what biliary colic feels like
- Keyhole gallbladder removal: from admission to back at work
Hernias at every age
- The bulge at the belly button after pregnancy: hernia or something else
- Groin swelling that disappears when you lie down
- When a hernia becomes an emergency tonight
Before and after the operation, practically
- What to bring on admission day, and what to leave at home
- Driving, prayer and lifting after abdominal surgery
- The wound check: what is normal on day five
Embarrassment is the real barrier, so design for it
The conditions general surgeons treat most electively are the ones people least want to discuss. Many patients with piles or a fissure wait years, try herbal remedies a relative recommended, and only come when bleeding frightens them. Young men with a pilonidal sinus hide it from their parents. Women with a hernia after a caesarean feel awkward undressing for a male surgeon.
Your content can remove most of that friction. Use plain, adult words. Use diagrams and models, never clinical photographs of real patients. Say clearly what the examination involves and who will be in the room. If you are a woman, say so; patients actively look for female surgeons for anorectal problems. If you are a man and many of your patients are women, mention that a female nurse is present, and let your coordinator's name be the one on the WhatsApp line.
The private message is where this pays off. Make it obvious that patients can describe the problem in writing first, without a call, and that the reply comes from a real person. Then treat what they write with care: never reshare a question even with the name removed unless the sender agreed, and never put a patient's story on screen without written consent they can take back.
Choose two or three conditions and own them
The fastest way to fail at personal branding as a general surgeon is to post about everything you can operate on. Your feed becomes a list, and lists are forgettable. Pick the conditions you most enjoy treating, that you see often, and that bring the kind of patient you want more of. For many surgeons in Saudi Arabia that is anorectal work, pilonidal sinus, gallbladder and hernia; for others it is thyroid, breast lumps or abdominal wall reconstruction.
Then go deep. Fifteen short videos about pilonidal sinus, from 'what is this lump' to 'how to sit in the car on the way home', will do more than fifteen videos about fifteen operations. Each one answers a search someone is typing this week. Together they make you the obvious person for that problem, and the people who come for it will ask you about their gallbladder later.
Seasons give you natural hooks. Ramadan brings heartburn, constipation and gallbladder attacks after heavy iftars, and fissures flare. Summer is when students and teachers want their elective operation done while they are off. The long drives of the holidays, to Abha, to the Eastern Province, to visit family, are a natural moment to talk about sitting, pilonidal disease and haemorrhoids.
The colleagues who send you patients
General surgery is still partly referral-driven. Family physicians, internists, gastroenterologists, gynaecologists and emergency doctors decide, every day, whose name to write on a referral or mention to a patient who asks 'who should I see?'. In a hospital where three general surgeons share the same clinic days, the one colleagues think of first gets the steady flow.
You build that name differently from your patient-facing one. A short case discussion on X, written for doctors, with no patient detail that could identify anyone. A ten-minute talk at your hospital's grand round on when to refer gallstones found incidentally. A clear one-page note for family physicians in your area on which anorectal symptoms need urgent review. These are small, unglamorous pieces of work, and they are remembered.
If you are an expatriate surgeon, this professional layer matters doubly. Referring doctors in your hospital may know you better than patients do in your first two years. Their confidence, plus a growing set of patient reviews, is how a new name becomes an established one.
The do-it-yourself version, step by step
Start with a list. For two weeks, write down every question patients ask you in clinic and every message your coordinator receives about the conditions you chose. You will end up with forty or fifty questions, most of them repeated. That is your first quarter of content.
Record in batches. One afternoon every two weeks, film eight to ten answers of under a minute each, with a model or a simple drawing on a whiteboard. Post three a week on TikTok and Instagram, and use Snapchat for the quick daily layer: a reply to a follower, a reminder before Ramadan about fibre and water. Turn your five most-asked questions into longer YouTube explainers that your coordinator can send as links.
Fix your Google Business Profile, because 'near me' searches for a female surgeon or a laser clinic land there. Add the conditions you treat to the description, upload real clinic photos and answer the questions people post. Ask every elective patient for a review at the wound check, when they feel better and are glad it is over.
Finally, write the first replies. A patient asking about piles should get, within the hour, a kind message that asks two clarifying questions, explains that the examination is private and brief, and offers a specific appointment.
What it is worth in riyals, and where the solo version stalls
Work it out with your own figures. Take your average net from one elective case after the hospital's share, in SAR; call it E. Count how many elective cases you would like to add each month; call it M. A presence that brings in M extra cases a month is worth 12 × M × E a year, before counting the patients those cases later send you. Set that against two hours of your week and the cost of help, and decide.
Most surgeons who try alone keep going for about a month. Then a heavy on-call week arrives, the batch day is cancelled, the editing waits, and the WhatsApp line goes back to answering the next morning. The patients you most wanted, the embarrassed ones, are also the ones least likely to message twice.
Aahfil runs that machine with you, remotely from our team in Kuwait: picking the conditions, writing the question list, batching the filming, editing in Saudi Arabic and English, and setting up the first-hour replies and review routine. If you want to check your own setup first, the checklist on this page walks through every step above so you can see what is missing.