Nurse anesthetists creating harmony with medical tunes
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10/16/2009 - 10/10/09
People sometimes talk about having heard waves crashing, winds blowing, or angels singing when they come out of anesthesia. Imagine how you would feel if you awoke from a knee-replacement operation or septoplasty and heard something like this, sung to the tune of Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do:"Patient's going down, do-be-do, down, down
Patient's going down, do-be-do, down, down
Don't take my tube away from me,
I'm trying to breathe, oh can't you see,
Take it out and I'll turn blue,
'Cause waking up is hard to do.
Relax. You wouldn't be hallucinating, and you shouldn't try to crawl screaming out of the room. Just lie back, breathe deeply, get that blood-oxygen level up, and be serenaded by the Laryngospasms. These guys, certified registered nurse anesthetists in the Minneapolis area, have made quite a name for themselves outside the operating room with their close-harmony singing of pop tunes with new, medically oriented verses.
After The Laryngospasms were recently featured on a CNN segment about medical humor, their Web site (laryngospasms.com) staggered under a barrage of hits, said member Keith Larson in a phone interview. And their Waking Up Is Hard to Do video has garnered more than a million hits on YouTube. Can American Idol or an appearance before Congress on healthcare reform be far behind? Come to think of it, these men would probably be ideal expert witnesses, and they could harmonize along the way.
Music groups made up of members from a single profession aren't all that rare, and medical musicians are rather common. My casual Internet search turned up a number of orchestras around the world made up of doctors, nurses and technicians; then there's the Atlanta Lawyers' Orchestra; the Ottawa (Canada) Police Chorus; and, of course, the published-writers band Rock Bottom Remainders, with members including Stephen King, Matt Groening, Amy Tan and Mitch Albom. Along that line, Franz Biebl's beloved "Ave Maria" was written for a German firemen's chorus.
Individual medicos don't always hide their love of art under their scrubs, either. I knew an operating room nurse who told me about a stage-struck doctor who kept rehearsing his songs and lines for Man of La Mancha during surgery. By the time that community-theater production was over, she had assisted at multiple operations performed to the 9/8 rhythm of "The Impossible Dream."
The Laryngospasms currently have four members; besides Larson, there are Gary Kozine, who founded the group in 1991, Rich Leyh and Doug Meuwissen. Dave Kimball is currently on leave because of family commitments. His colleagues hope he returns soon, especially considering that their third CD is in the works.
The group's first album came out in 1994 and featured guest vocals by the Stylettes, a female trio, also of certified registered nurse anesthetists; the second was issued in 2002. The Laryngospasms' titles include "The Little Old Lady With Her Fractured Femur," "Mister Gasman," "Anesthesia Dreamin'," "Little HMO" and "Scoper Girl."
"It's all about singing," Larson said. "We did lip-sync on the YouTube video, since that was acting besides singing. But when we perform live, we just put it out there." They all contribute to the writing process, too. "Say you're working with a podiatrist, and he's having a hard time doing the surgery, and you think, 'how would I want to talk about what he's doing?' " (That must be where "The Hammertoe" came from.)
"You have to have humor in medicine," he said. "It can be stressful, and a lot of ugly things can happen. It's one reason we do this. It's an outlet for every one of us. When we're relaxing, we can tell the stories of our day, then talk about it, and laugh about it." Anything patients say under anesthesia is off public limits, of course. Larson admitted that "sometimes they'll say things before we start like, 'Why don't you come home with me after this? I'll get rid of my husband.' "
Though their professional careers and busy out-of-the-OR lives keep them occupied, the Laryngospasms have racked up an impressive performance list. In the last few years, they have played for the Arthroscopy Association of North America in San Diego, the American College of Surgeons in San Francisco, the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists in Minneapolis, and the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses in Anaheim. They're set for a Minneapolis gig for the National Consortium for Health Science Education next October, and hope to fill in other dates along the way, including possibly a respiratory therapist conference in Tucson. "We're back and forth, but we're certainly not ready to quite our day jobs," said Larson.
Though rather surprised and pleased by their YouTube success, the singers are obviously used to making a hit. When they performed in Anaheim, Larson recalled that "it was a huge space, and I think 10,000 people had to be on the floor. We sold 400 CDs in an hour, as fast as we could sign them. If we'd brought 2,000, we could have sold them all."
While "the Laryngospasms" may be an unusual name for an ensemble, Larson reminded me that the condition — an involuntary contraction of the vocal cords that makes taking a breath dangerously hard if not impossible — is no joke, especially when it occurs as a complication of anesthesia. "That's one of the biggest problems for airway management. Once the cords close, you have serious problems. But we know how to take care of it in a nanosecond. It may seem funny when you come across the name, but it's part of our business."
One last bulletin: the 'spasms have been invited to audition for America's Got Talent and they plan to do so in Chicago today. You never know — it could the start of a new life or even a reality show: Operating Room Arias.
Contact Craig Smith at 986-3038 or csmith@sfnewmexican.com.
