Johnson County doctor talked hair loss with Jada Pinkett Smith. Now she has a TV show
Move over, “Dr. Pimple Popper,” there’s a new trio of dermatologists on TLC’s new series, in “Bad Hair Day,” including Dr. Meena Singh, a dermatological surgeon at the Kansas Medical Clinic in Shawnee.
In the premiere episode, airing at 9 p.m. Wednesday, Singh treats her patient, Shenae, who suffers from traction alopecia, hair loss possibly as a result of having to wear her hair pulled back while in the U.S. Army. In the episode Singh says that 1 out of 3 Black women suffers from the condition.
“Your hair is your glory,” Shenae says. “When the hair goes, it seems like everything else goes as far as confidence.”
Other cases in the premiere episode, overseen by doctors in North Carolina and Texas, focus on a man with severe burns to his scalp and a woman who grows facial hair.
Even prior to “Bad Hair Day,” Singh’s field of specialty has been in the pop culture zeitgeist, especially since Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars after Rock snarked about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved hairstyle, a result of her struggle with alopecia.
Filming on “Bad Hair Day” was already well underway when Singh appeared on the June 1 episode of Pinkett Smith’s “Red Table Talk” to answer questions about alopecia.
“That was an amazing platform,” Singh says. “I don’t think a lot of people had heard of alopecia, and now it’s the medical topic of the summer. It’s made people more sensitive about the subject.”
Medicine runs in the family
A 1999 graduate of Olathe East High School, Singh is the daughter of an Indian father and a Black mother, or “Blindian,” as she calls herself in “Bad Hair Day.” Singh knew from an early age she wanted to follow her mother, Dr. Linda Singh of Saint Luke’s in Kansas City, into medicine.
“My mom was one of the first Black women to graduate from University of Missouri-Kansas City’s six-year medical program,” Meena Singh says. “She was my influence to go into medicine. I never wanted to do anything else but be a doctor.”
After studying biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California as an undergrad, Singh attended Harvard Medical School, trained at the Mayo Clinic and completed a surgical fellowship in New York City.
Her husband at the time was interested in dermatology, and she wrote up his research papers and they both wound up getting published. His mentor encouraged her to try out dermatology, and a lecturer noted there were not a lot of Black dermatologists at the time.
“As soon as I did my first rotation, I knew dermatology was for me,” Singh says. “It’s a visual field and it’s gratifying. We can fix people pretty quickly with most things, and they needed more people that looked like me to go into dermatology.”
Specializing in the treatment of hair loss followed, as did a return to Kansas City.
“It was always the plan,” Singh, 41, says. “My mom is my main influence. She’s cared for our community for decades, and many people in the Black community, someone in their family has seen my mom. I love that. I always wanted to come back. There’s a brain drain in Kansas. People go off, do their thing and stay in the big city. There are enough Black dermatologists in New York. There was only one before I came here in Kansas City. This is a big city and this is where I’m needed.”
Joining TLC’s ‘Bad Hair Day’
Producers of “Bad Hair Day” saw Singh on a video her clinic posted to YouTube and reached out. Filming on the first episode with Shanae began last September, with follow-up filming about seven months later, allowing time for Singh’s treatments to have an effect (often it takes 12-15 months for results).
Future Singh patients featured on the other five episodes of “Bad Hair Day” include Nellie, who suffers from hirsutism, or facial hair growth.
“(The treatment) changed her life. That was extremely gratifying,” Singh says. “That’s the thing about dermatology, people think it’s so cosmetic, so superficial, it’s vanity. If you notice it, it’s not cosmetic, it’s not vanity and you would notice a woman with a beard. With dermatology, it’s not life-saving but it is life-changing.”
Singh says she agreed to appear on “Bad Hair Day” because it educates about how doctors like her help those who suffer from hair loss and associated issues.
“A lot of people feel completely helpless,” she says. “They don’t know where to go and that there’s help available and that if we catch it early, we can fix it. If you let it progress, then we might have lost the window to help.”
Singh says making “Bad Hair Day” gave her the opportunity to better understand her patients’ emotional pain.
“I see so many patients that I’m constantly running, and this gave me the chance to slow down and focus on a set group of patients for a full day each,” Singh says. “Usually someone is on my office for 15 minutes or I’m doing hair transplant surgery and I don’t get to see the behind-the-scenes, the amount of suffering and heartbreak that goes into the impact of their condition. … Doing this show really gave me more insight into what goes into the everyday of having hair and scalp issues.”
Patients featured on “Bad Hair Day” have their treatment cost covered. They had to go through a casting department that picked who got on the show in an effort to showcase a variety of issues, including extreme cases that make for better TV storytelling.
Singh’s own bounteous hair makes her a great candidate for TV, but as a doctor who treats hair loss, does she have to put more thought into how her own hair looks to her patients?
“I think it would be ignorant to think what my hair looks like doesn’t matter to the patients,” she says. “Sometimes I feel almost insensitive because I do have big hair. It’s the type of hair that people comment on a lot. … The other side of it is, if I didn’t have big hair, people would be wondering if I know what I’m talking about.”
Singh acknowledges some misgivings about her show’s title but says when she thought about it, she couldn’t come up with anything better.
“It’s memorable, that’s for sure,” Singh says. “What else is there, ‘Hair-Raising Experiences’? At the end of the day, our job is to improve it. I wish it were called ‘Better Hair Day.’”
Singh is completely comfortable with the inevitable comparisons between “Bad Hair Day” and established TLC hit “Dr. Pimple Popper,” where a dermatologic surgeon removes growths on patients’ skin.
“I love it because TLC is doing a lot of shows about dermatology,” Singh says. “Before that people didn’t know what we did all day every day. Showcasing all the procedures and surgeries and the conditions that we see and treat is amazing. ‘Dr. Pimple Popper’ is huge. She’s opened the world up to being a dermatologist. I used to have students who used to want to be an orthopedic surgeon or a pediatrician, and nowadays everyone wants to be a dermatologist and I love it.”
Freelance writer Rob Owen: RobOwenTV@gmail.com or on Facebook and Twitter as RobOwenTV.
Where to watch
New episodes of “Bad Hair Day” air at 9 p.m. Wednesdays on TLC, starting Aug. 24.
This story was originally published August 21, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Johnson County doctor talked hair loss with Jada Pinkett Smith. Now she has a TV show."