Minutes before surgery, most patients are anxious about the procedure, just waiting for anesthesia, or praying that they come out of the surgery okay.  However, the Daily Telegraph reports that Dr. Deborah Cohan, a doctor from San Francisco, approached her surgery little differently.  Heading into her double mastectomy, Cohan and her medical team at Mt. Zion Hospital danced out her last minutes with her breasts to “Get Me Bodied” by Beyoncé.

The dance party video was posted on YouTube and has since received over three million views.  Users have poured in with supportive messages.  Many laud her courage and positivity in the face of such a stressful procedure, while others note that she has impressive dance skills.  Cohan asked others to stand with her by recording and posting their own impromptu dance videos.

It did not take longs for her colleagues at San Francisco General Hospital to respond to her request.  They posted a video on YouTube of a group of them dancing in the hospital hall.  In the description, they said they were “sending healing energy” and love to Cohan.  Cohan, an obstetrician, hoped to create a montage of dance videos to create positivity for woman undergoing these life and body altering surgeries.

According to the Mayo Clinic, a mastectomy is a surgery to remove all breast tissue from a breast as a way to treat or prevent breast cancer.  For those with early-stage breast cancer, mastectomy may be one treatment option. Breast-conserving surgery (lumpectomy), in which only the tumor is removed from the breast, may be another option. Deciding between mastectomy and lumpectomy can be difficult. Both procedures are equally effective.

Mastectomy is an umbrella term used for several different procedures. In addition to removing one or both breasts, mastectomy may also include removing lymph nodes in the armpit area to determine whether the cancer has spread.  The different types of mastectomy are modified radical, simple or total, skin-sparing, and nipple-sparing.

These procedures can be psychologically difficult to handle for woman.  In addition to the burden of facing the cancer diagnosis, the woman has to lose a piece of her body that makes her feel feminine.  Unlike hair loss that comes with chemotherapy and radiation, a mastectomy is permanent and, in order to replace the breasts, the woman must have reconstructive surgery or get breast implants.  Depending on the medical decisions, it may be possible to make breast replacements easier.  The physical and mental burden of breast cancer and its treatment make positive videos like Cohan’s a rarity.