Everyone’s getting ‘down’ with Providence’s pink glove dance

With more than 2.4 million page views, YouTube clip of hospital staff dancing is raising awareness for breast cancer

By Jessie Kirk

The Beaverton Valley Times, Nov 26, 2009, Updated Dec 2, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Despite the stresses of responding to emergencies, performing surgeries and trying to combat a flu pandemic, the employees at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center are dancing in the hallways.

Literally.

For proof, just check out the YouTube video YouTube video featuring more than 200 doctors, nurses, lab techs, administrators and kitchen and janitorial staff getting down to the appropriately named R&B song by Jay Sean called “Down.”

“Pink Glove Dance,” named for the pink exam gloves that everyone in the video wears, has been making its way around the Internet since it was posted earlier this month. As of press time, the 3½-minute video had been watched more than 2 million times, had about 2,000 comments and was linked to on hundreds of Web sites, including The Huffington Post, which claimed the revelry looked like an episode of “Scrubs.”

The touching video was filmed all around the hospital Nov. 4 and was created to raise funds and generate awareness about breast cancer; A portion of the sales from the Generation Pink synthetic exam gloves will provide mammograms for uninsured women thanks to Medline Industries Inc., the company that makes the gloves and produced the video.

“Breast cancer is an important cause for the employees at our hospital, as well as the entire community,” said Martie Moore, chief nursing officer for the hospital. “The video was a really fun and creative way for our employees to help spread awareness about breast cancer.”

Yet the video is more than a public service announcement. Thousands of comments that appear below the video on YouTube profess how touching, uplifting and heartwarming it is to watch Providence’s staff joyfully swing and line dance, do the monkey and the twist all around the hospital – an environment most commonly associated with sickness.

“St. Vincent Hospital and staff... you really ROCK MY WORLD!,” wrote a commenter named rumbledoll1. “Hope your effort becomes highly contagious.”

Hospital spokesman Jonathan Modie said all it took was an e-mail to staff inviting them to take part in the dance off and more than 200 employees of all ages, departments and skill levels answered the call.

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