Pink Glove Dance Competition Raises Breast Cancer Awareness, Features Nurses, Doctors, Volunteers (VIDEOS)

If you haven't heard October is breast cancer awareness month, you just might be living under a rock.

What might surprise you, though, is that hospital staff in the US and Canada have been rocking out in the name of breast cancer awareness. (Scroll to watch.)

The Pink Glove Dance Competition kicked off on Aug. 1, as an online video contest for a prize of $10,000. More than 135 groups submitted videos of doctors, nurses, volunteers and other staff dancing around for the cause, according to the website. The winner will be announced Oct. 28.

According to the official rules, entries will be judged on originality, creativity, video production quality and audience appeal. The winner of the contest receives $10,000 to donate to the breast cancer charity of their choice.

A portion of medical supply manufacturer Medline's pink exam gloves goes to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

The entries have been creating quite a buzz on YouTube, with Victoria Hospital's video even being among the most viewed and share videos in Canada on Tuesday.

An estimated 230,480 cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in the US in 2011, according to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. However, research over the years has made a difference is catching the disease.

"We can find it earlier, treat it more effectively, reduce recurrence and enhance survival," Dr. Freya Schnabel, director of breast surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center, told Health.com.

Contestants had a choice of dancing to one of seven songs, including Katy Perry's "Firework," and Pink's "Raise Your Glass." You can vote for your favorite dance here. Check out some of the entries below.

Comments

[Emily Brown]

11:15 AM on 10/08/2011

listen, i'm truly an advocate for breast cancer awareness. one of my biggest fears is breast cancer. but bigger than that fear? getting CERVICAL or OVARIAN cancer, which are both harder to detect and far more damaging to most women. they don't get half the awareness that breast cancer does (breast cancer has 2 months. TWO FREAKING MONTHS OF AWARENESS!!!!). and i'm sorry, but my babymaker is a little bit more important to me than my boobies are. yes. we should be aware of breast cancer. but we should also raise awareness of the other two as well. as women, we owe it to each other. you can get fake boobies. you can't get a fake cervix or fake ovaries.

[surfette72]

12:35 PM on 10/07/2011

Hmmmm...I wonder if they would be this emphatic if it were their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons suffering from prostate cancer?? Would everyone still be "shedding tears through smiles?"

[StrawHat]

07:28 AM on 10/07/2011

Beautiful -- these always make me cry and laugh at the same time. Cancer SUX and there's no denying that, but laughing and dancing in the face of death has always appealed to me.

The terror and isolation is crushing -- what else is there to do between biopsies and treatments but LAUGH, dance, hug, LOVE and LIVE?

[amantedelibros]

11:46 AM on 10/06/2011

These are great videos. I especially like that everyone came together for a good cause.

[ljblinddog]

10:51 AM on 10/06/2011

I have often wondered why cancer awareness organizations don't use some of their time and influence to talk about the correlation between cancer, the kinds of foods we eat, coal and petroleum products, air and water quality in our country and the world at large.

[amantedelibros]

11:48 AM on 10/06/2011

So true. We have estrogen dominance in this country coming from petroleum products in particular and too much estrogen leads to much upheaval. I'd also like to see the American Heart Association become more aggressive in its outreach and educational efforts, to the same degree that breast cancer advocates and organizations are. Heart disease is the number 1 killer of women and not enough is being done that about that fact.

[littlemiss22]

02:30 PM on 10/06/2011

Because there is no money in curing people, there is no money in telling people to stop eating those frozen foods, the chemical laced veggies, the toxic fumes we spray.etc. you see if we stopped producing and consuming all these things then who has a job, who has money. Did you notice that no one in the medical field uses for word CURE, it's you get a treatment you can be treated al your life while others thrive and profit from it.

[StrawHat]

07:34 AM on 10/07/2011

It's a nice conspiracy theory, but it's not true.

If I'd relied on carrots, fresh air and meditation to cure my melanoma...? I'd be dead.

Once you're diagnosed, it's time to either get aggressive or get your affairs in order.

My cancer was probably a result of radiation and heavy metal exposure (from the sun and nasty air from nearby petrochemical plants) in my childhood but the lesion grew on me and became dangerous forty years later -- six years after becoming a whole-foods vegetarian, three years after becoming a super-organic vegan who didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't even take aspirin, exercised 15 hours per week, never used dangerous chemicals around the house, etc.

It's complicated, and while eating organic vegetables certainly doesn't hurt anyone, it is not a reliable cure for a cancerous lesion. It's just...not.

[coolmaiden]

10:43 AM on 10/06/2011

This is in Canada, where patients don't have to worry about losing their homes if they need chemo and nurses don't have to work in hospitals that routinely assign them 10-12 patients per shift. I'd be dancing too if I lived there.

[farmilyman]

10:19 AM on 10/06/2011

Breast cancer would be unknown if it weren't for environmental pollution and processed food.

[coolmaiden]

10:37 AM on 10/06/2011

My great-grandmother died of breast cancer in 1950, at the age of 50. She was an immigrant who cooked every meal she ever ate. She lived in a mid-sized city. Your statement is preposterous.
While those things may contribute to cancer, to say they are the only causes is disingenuous and quackery.
I hope you and those in your family never have to deal with the pain of breast cancer.

[farmilyman]

12:23 PM on 10/06/2011

So you are saying cities in the 1950s were pollution free and there was no processed food?

[Lesann]

04:33 PM on 10/06/2011

@familyman

John Adams oldest daughter died of breast cancer in 1810. I doubt there was a bunch of processed food or air pollution at that time.

From the American Cancer Society:

"A lot of research is being done to learn how the environment might affect breast cancer risk. This issue understandably invokes a great deal of public concern, but at this time research does not show a clear link between breast cancer risk and exposure to substances like plastics, certain cosmetics and personal care products, and pesticides (such as DDE). More research is needed to better define the possible health effects of these and similar substances."

Trans-fat (found in processed food) MAY raise the risk of breast cancer.

There are many risk factors for breast cancer - not just two.

[plumnelly]

10:13 AM on 10/06/2011

Well done! Watching it I can't help but get teary eyed, my mom is a breast cancer survivor as well as my mother-in-law.

[leftparadise]

10:07 AM on 10/06/2011

every time I watch these videos I get very emotional, and cry, even though no one in my immediate family has had to suffer from breast cancer. I think its just the feeling of support that radiates out from these videos, the caring, the love, gets me every time.

[manicore]

09:36 AM on 10/06/2011

Breast Cancer Awareness! What exactly mean and who benefits? Big Pharma and of course the FDA. Breast Awareness is a marketing promotional gimmick to get people to donate more money and for what? The majority of money goes to Advertising. The more money you give them the less they have to spend on advertising. The biggest battle we face in our battle against Cancer is not money, it is a system that kills innovation and allows only Big Pharma the right to promote there latest Drugs that have more to do with making MONEY than they do with curing Cancer. check out " Poison Cut Burn" on Youtube.

[StrawHat]

07:39 AM on 10/07/2011

Those women are dancing to raise awareness because of people like my grandmother: she had a SUPER slow-growing breast-cancer tumor that was an undiagnosed lump in her breast for more than a decade -- but she was too shy and modest to tell a doctor about it until it was HUGE and too late.

She died in white-hot agony that morphine could barely cut due to the cancer breaking her spinal bones from the inside.

Until you've seen someone in that kind of pain, you have NO RIGHT to judge the people who have been teaching women world-wide to STOP letting modesty and shyness KILL them. Cancer is treatable now in the early stages. There are millions of happy, healthy, LIVING breast cancer patients all around you.

WAKE UP.

[manicore]

06:50 PM on 10/07/2011

My Grandmother died of Breast Cancer. My post was not about surviving Breast Cancer. My post was about a system that only lets Big Pharma. a seat at the table and has killed serious research done by Researchers simply because they could not come up with the money to Promote medical trials. Check out the documentary "Poison, Cut,Burn".

[SophiaFlorere]

09:23 AM on 10/06/2011

Nice! can we have one now for pancreatic cancer as well someday? I love it!

[Koiquoe]

09:04 AM on 10/06/2011

Classic!

[Urbane Worrier]

09:04 AM on 10/06/2011

Very happy and reassuring video.

Great message.

Staff on all levels working as a team to get you through the experience.
They know you're scared, they know your fears and they're there to support and help you through the horrible experience as best they can.

People care and it gives me hope.

[kendall1]

09:03 AM on 10/06/2011

All choked up after watching that. Amazing!

[Dr Juan]

08:50 AM on 10/06/2011

"Shaking it" is definitely good for improving lymph circulation - and may very well help ward off cancer!

There is a theory that bras cause cancer for doing just the opposite. ( Howard Hughes was an engineer not a doctor )