‘Dancing Doctor’ Struts His Stuff Right Into Sick Kids’ Hearts

NORFOLK, VA — Tony Adkins isn’t a full-fledged doctor, but don’t tell that to the gravely ill children whose hearts he struts into as the “Dancing Doctor.” A physician assistant, Adkins owes his internet fame to cell phone video posted on social media by a mom cheered by how his spontaneous dance returned, however fleetingly, the light to her son’s eyes.

Adkins, a 43-year-old physician assistant in pediatric neurosurgery from California, brought his smooth dance moves to Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters Monday while he was in Norfolk to speak at orientation for the newest Eastern Virginia Medical School physician assistant class.

The way Adkins sees it, laughter is good medicine for kids with little to smile about as they battle common and rare neurologic conditions, such as cerebral palsy, brain tumors and traumatic brain injuries.

“Practicing in neurosurgery means I see some of the worst things that can possibly take place for a child,” Adkins, a certified physician assistant at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, California, since 2015, wrote for MedPage Today. “In an area of medicine where the stakes are high and the spirits often low, I believe it's important to create an outlet for kids to have fun because laughter and silliness is one of the best doses of medicine I can provide to patients.”

That first dance led to Dancing Doctor’s signature style.

“One day, one of my kids was … I could see the glow in his eyes was kind of leaving, so I turned on some music and started dancing,” Adkins told news station WTVR. “His mom filmed it, put it on social media and it just kind of went from there.”

Adkins thinks dancing is a form of therapy that helps “kids feel like kids again in their darkest moments,” he wrote on a MedPage Today blog.

“Many neurology patients often can't move their hands or legs and may be tethered to their beds or wearing a brace,” he wrote. “Being celebrated through song and dance brings them much joy and helps to get their minds off their disease.

“That's why you might catch me in the hospital halls or in a patient's room grooving to a hit song with my little friends. It's become so popular that patients call ahead of their hospital visit to schedule their dance session with me. There's a contagion in showcasing joy, and soon, parents and hospital staff were joining in on the fun.”

Patients have told him the videos make chemotherapy easier, or helped them “get through troubling times,” Adkins told WTVR. Others say the videos bring “humanity back into medicine.”

Some of the parents, Adkins told news station WAVY, haven’t seen their children laugh in a very long time.

“For me, I see what it does for the kids. Imagine being in the hospital within these walls and you can’t leave. Kids were made to explore and have fun outside,” he said. “What I do, I come in and help them and relate to them with laughing and giggling. Some parents haven’t seen their kids laugh in a long time.”

Victoria Wagner, whose 3-year-old son Titus is being treated for neuroblastoma at the Norfolk children’s hospital, told WTVR that Adkins is “a breath of fresh air,” and “somebody who makes everything not so scary for them, who makes things a lot easier for them — and for us, honestly, as parents.”

Adkins didn’t grow up with a debilitating disease, but he did grow up tough. The son of a single mother, he was surrounded by violence and poverty in his south central Los Angeles neighborhood. Two older brothers had succumbed to the lure of gangs, and Adkins said the odds were against him.

He worked hard to stay out of the gangs. He joined the Army and, upon his discharge, earned his physician assistant certification.

“However,” he wrote on the MedPage Today blog, “some credit is due to my love of performance for steering me away from trouble. The easiest way to cope in a toxic environment was to express myself through dance, and this outlet has a lot to do with why I didn't end up in jail or dead at a young age.”

Adkins never expected to gain celebrity status just by trying to make life a little more normal for sick kids.

“It just blew me away,” he sold WAVY. “I didn’t know something like this would go this far. ... This is such a simple thing anybody can do and all of the sudden the world is looking at me like I’m delivering something different to medicine.”

He’s started something of a movement, as evidenced by his invitation to speak to the PA class at Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Adkins told the Daily Press he’s flattered by copycats — other physician assistants, nurses and doctors using music and dance to make life more bearable for pediatric patients.

“I’m welcoming it,” he said. “We as health care providers can be more personal.”

Adkins even got Brianna Goodall, a 16-year-old with sickle cell disease who as been at the Norfolk hospital since New Year’s Day, to dance. She wasn’t feeling well, but her caregivers hoped she would respond when Adkins squatted beside her hospital bed and swayed to gthe crooning of Bruno Mars.

Brianna gave all she could, and beads of sweat formed on Adkins’ forehead, according to the Daily Press account of the impromptu stop at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters.

Kristi Logg, a certified child life specialist, poked her head into Brianna’s room when the dance was over and saw a change reflected in the teen’s face.

“I’m so glad you said, ‘Yes,’ ” Logg said.

Here’s a video of the dancing doctor from Instagram: