TAMC staffers’ video goes viral
Those of us who came of musical age in the 1970s can remember where we were and what we were doing the first time Freddie Mercury and Queen asked: “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”
Those opening a cappella lines, followed by guitar riffs, operatic passages and alternating hard rock and ballad sections, made “Bohemian Rhapsody” — and the album “Night at the Opera” — bonafide rock classics.
In the following four decades, countless bands and soloists, from Elton John to Pink and even The Muppets, have covered Bohemian Rhapsody.
Yeah, I know, and Kanye West — but why go there?
Now there’s a new, northern Maine version of the Queen classic floating around. It’s one with a rather unique twist and a deadly serious message.
Recently, staff at The Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle rolled out “TAMC Rhapsody: Any Way the Blood Flows,” with original lyrics set to the tune of Queen’s rock anthem.
“We want to ensure we educate our staff on infection prevention practices,” Jennifer Tweedie RN, manager of TAMC infection prevention and writer-director of the video, said. “We wanted to do something that was inventive and fun to reiterate something very important, but doing it in a lighthearted way.”
Tweedie said it took her about 20 minutes to come up with the new lyrics, which replace the line “Mama, just killed a man” with “MRSA, just hurt a man.”
The infection prevention method takes off from there:
“Open your eyes
Just look around and see
Entered this bloodstream, the doc forgot hand hygiene.
So now I’m nice and warm, it’s easy to grow
Multiplying to and fro
Anyway the blood flows, doesn’t really matter to me, to me.”
MRSA, or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is among the most worrisome infections hospitals and other health care facilities face, fueled by overuse of antibiotics in the U.S. and worldwide.
Bacteria linger on surfaces, such as surgical instruments, bed linens and door handles, or spread from room to room by unwashed hands and the coughs and sneezes of sick patients.
On any given day, one in every 25 U.S. patients contracts an infection during a hospital stay, according to a March 2014 study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Of those infected, 75,000 died in 2011, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.
According to Dr. Jay Reynolds, TAMC’s chief medical officer, 700,000 Americans contract an infectious disease in health care facilities every year.
“This is a big problem,” Reynolds said. “Everyone in health care has a role to play in prevention.”
Reynolds takes his role as a doctor very seriously. His role as the messenger for infection control? A little more humorously.
Reynolds plays the lead in the video, starring as a singing and dancing germ.
“It took zero convincing for me to do this, when [Tweedie] asked me,” he said.
More than 55 members of the TAMC staff from surgical teams to the maintenance department were right behind him.
“We had a lot of buy in from all over the hospital,” Tweedie said. “It really did show how everyone can play a role in infection prevention.”
“MRSA makes me wanna cry,” Dr. Niraj Karki sings. “Get all the staff back here again tomorrow. Let them know, let them know, hand hygiene really matters.”
Quick switch to a hospital room with a trio from housekeeping busily scrubbing every surface area while singing, “I see a little silhouetto of a germ. Scrubbing here, scrubbing there, we do not want you to grow. C. diff, MRSA, CRE very, very frightening! Get the bleach out, get the bleach out, get the bleach out, get the bleach out get the bleach out, hurry go — magnifico!”
The bacteria, meanwhile, laments, “I’m just a poor germ, nobody loves me. … Easy come easy grow, will you let me grow?”
To get into character, Reynolds donned a special hunting suit used for blending in to grassland terrain but also made him look sort of like a floating, shedding ball of hair as he cavorts from room to room meeting sanitizers, ultraviolet technology and other bacteria fighting measures along the way to his ultimate demise.
“Infection prevention really matters,” he sings as a nearby monitor shows his vitals flatlining. “Any germ can see. Hand hygiene really matters; cleaning practices really matter to me.”
A standard on her iPod playlist, Bohemian Rhapsody was a natural song to use in the parody, Tweedie said.
“It’s a long song, too,” Reynolds said. “So we could have a lot of fun with it.”
And they did have fun, Tweedie said.
“I’ve been at TAMC for 3 1/2 years,” she said. “This is the most fun I’ve had here.”
But the serious message does not get lost amid the fun.
After the credits, Reynolds comes on — minus his germ suit — to emphasize the serious nature of infectious diseases and the impact they can have on patients and their families.
“This is not a topic in the mind of the public,” he said. “But it’s really a national priority within hospitals.”
There was no single incident or infectious disease case that sparked the creation of the video, according to Tweedie.
“Truly, it was just a different way of providing education, which we are required to do on a regular basis,” she said. “With that being said, the goal of The Aroostook Medical Center is to have zero health care-acquired infections.”
It’s too soon to calculate what impact, if any, the video has had on the occurrence of infectious diseases at the facility, Tweedie said,
The video, which was shared directly with Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, has been viewed more than 5,222 hits on the hospital’s Facebook page, according to Tweedie, and 1,775 times on YouTube, as of noon Thursday.
“The reaction to the video has been extremely positive,” she said. “I’ve received dozens of emails from employees stating that they really enjoyed the video [and] believe that we were very successful with getting employee’s attention, which was our primary intention.”
Plans already are in the works for a follow-up, according to Reynolds.
“Influenza season is just around the corner,” he said.
As for what classic rock song will be tapped to highlight that disease, Reynolds and Tweedie cited doctor-lyric confidentiality and declined to provide any details.
Stay tuned.
Julia Bayly of Fort Kent is an award winning writer and photographer, who writes part time for Bangor Daily News. Her column appears here every other Friday. She can be reached by email at jbayly@bangordailynews.com.
