Pritzker News
Gone viral Pritzker students’ medical school parody becomes YouTube sensation BY JAMIE BARTOSCH
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class show is a medical school tradition, but the latest production from the Pritzker School of Medicine Class of 2016 takes it to a whole new level. The students’ latest parody, “I Don’t Know,” went viral on YouTube, with more than 1 million views and counting. Set to the Grammy Award-winning song, “Let It Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen,” the video captures the fears of medical students beginning the clinical year with funny lyrics and hallway dance routines. “Anybody who’s been through medical school gets it,” said Sammita Satyanarayan, MS3, who filmed the video on a camera borrowed from a second-year student, greatly improving the quality over their previous iPhone-made productions. “I Don’t Know” put Pritzker on the medical school parody map, giving a run to viral hits like Harvard Medical School’s 2-million-view “What Does the Spleen Do?” It could even be a contender for a 2015 “Memmy,” the medical school parody version of the Emmy Award, sponsored by the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. The brains and voice behind the project is Jacqueline “Beanie” Meadow, MS3, who, along with a few others in the video, sings in Pritzker’s Say Ah a cappella group. Julie Mhlaba, MS3, choreographed the dance moves.
“My class is pretty artistically talented and we’re taking advantage of it,” Meadow said. “We had a really good time making it. The goal was not to get a million hits. It was just to be funny.” The Pritzker students spent 10 hours making the video over a two-day period following the Step 1 board exams, using the empty 6th floor simulation rooms
at Bernard A. Mitchell Hospital as their set. They recruited about a dozen fellow students via Facebook, jokingly promising them YouTube fame, and — in the role of attending physician — Meadow’s father, neonatologist William Meadow, MD, PhD, professor of pediatrics. “People talk about it all the time in the hospital. They’ll say, ‘Hey, I saw you in the Continued on page 34
Jacqueline “Beanie” Meadow, MS3, stars in the newest Pritzker parody video, “I Don’t Know,” based on a song from the Disney movie “Frozen.” Meadow has appeared in several Pritzker video productions and sings in the medical school’s Say Ah a cappella group. PHOTO BY ROBERT KOZLOFF
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION