Those dancing doctors at UNC Children’s Hospital are back with a new jam and video
Dr. Stuart Gold celebrated the end of a pandemic-scarred 2020 by pulling on a gold lamme jacket, slipping into a pair of sparkling dance shoes and leading a team of pediatricians in a group boogie through the halls of UNC Children’s Hospital — all while lip-syncing to Whitney Houston.
Now, at the close of an even-harder 2021, the dancing doctors are back — this time featuring Gold in a burgundy evening jacket and a foot-long green ponytail sculpted into an exclamation point.
“It was supposed to be a mohawk,” joked Gold. “I’ve never done that before.”
No rehearsal needed
The Children’s Hospital crew filmed what is fast becoming a viral video tradition over four hours on a Saturday, when most of the clinics had closed.
“No rehearsal,” Gold said. “We’re good.”
The dance winds through exam rooms with all dancers masked and vaccinated, the arm rolls, jazz-hand gestures and spins choreographed by Dr. Kenya McNeal-Trice and her daughters.
‘COVID hurt the world’
Set to Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September,” the video follows Gold’s transformation from day-dreaming at his desk to spinning on his behind in a sort of medical break dance.
The doctors needed a release and some recognition after a second year of pandemic, this one complicated by a pair of variants that made medical care even tougher to deliver.
“I think COVID hurt the world,” Gold said. “We expected it to be better this year. It wasn’t.”
But once sore shoulders and bruised calves heal, expect the UNC stylists to return for a third performance, hopefully on the heels of better news.
“We’re thinking of an aquatic scene, like Esther Williams,” Gold said. “I’m getting a personal trainer right now.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2022 at 1:53 PM with the headline "Those dancing doctors at UNC Children’s Hospital are back with a new jam and video."