A Gold Coast doctor has taken up rapping to help teach her colleagues a difficult and unusual medical technique — and it is catching on.
"I was talking about paediatric sepsis, which is a life-threatening condition that can kill … and you need to act fast," Paediatric Emergency Registrar Sonia Twigg said.
"We were talking about the importance of getting IV access and the difficulties of getting intraosseous and we thought, 'we need a song!'"
If intraosseous injection sounds complicated, that is because it is.
Doctors use it to inject drugs and fluids rapidly into a patient's bone marrow when other methods, such as intravenous injection, are unavailable or too dangerous.
It is a relatively infrequent procedure, but it is vital to get right.
Dr Twigg said she needed a way to remember it and remind her colleagues.
That turned out to be Eminem's iconic song Lose Yourself.
When your palms are sweaty, knees weak and arms are heavy, sometimes a song or other memory device can help you own it.
But the words to Dr Twigg's version are not quite the ones you would recognise.
"We thought about using 'Heads and Shoulders, Knees and Toes', and we thought that would send the wrong message because that's the wrong place," she said.
You only get one shot
The Gold Coast University Hospital is a pilot site for developing a program of early recognition and treatment of children with paediatric sepsis.
Gold Coast Paediatric Emergency Department medical director Christa Bell said it shows education can be given in multiple different ways.
She said the video and song empower the staff and has already helped save lives.
"We wanted to provide something that gave real information about the clinical placements of intraosseous needle," Dr Bell said.
"But also address some of the fears and apprehension that come with dealing with a critically unwell child."
"Go ahead and do it … you've only got one shot," Dr Bell said.
She said so far several health institutions have taken it up as a learning tool, including Queensland Ambulance.
