MUMBAI: Through a song conceived especially in honor of the thousands of medical practitioners and healthcare workers who have put their lives on the line during the pandemic, two enterprising musicians cum doctors have come together to launch a music single titled ‘Bloody White Coat’ to shed light on a phenomenon that has become common in India lately: health-care workers being subjected to violence and abuse as they try to contain the virus.

On the occasion of National Doctor’s Day, inspired by real life incidents over the last year, this motivational Hindi track is produced by The Spindoctor (Dr Sanjay Meriya) in collaboration with rapper G-Doc (Dr Gshaan Mukharjee) who have been working tirelessly helping those affected ever since the pandemic broke out as frontline healthcare workers.

In this debut collaboration, the Mumbai-based duo effortlessly spotlight the alarming surge in cases of abuse towards the frontline healthcare workers and advocate the need for the basic human right to respect for those helping heal our world. The ethos of the narrative is clearly endorsed by the community with healthcare professionals featuring in the supporting music video.

Serving humanity is what has kept these young artists occupied over the last one year as they have taken a step back from their mainstream career in music to return to the field as doctors and serve the common man amid the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis.

Talking about the relevance of the single in current times, The Spindoctor expands, “Please let this track which is the collective voice of the healthcare fraternity across India, serve as a wake-up call to condemn violence on doctors. Today patients approach doctors not with faith but fear, not with hope but hostility. When you become a doctor, you know there’s a risk of contracting infection and we are mentally prepared for that since it’s an occupational hazard. But getting beaten up and called names, that isn’t something we signed up for. Violence against doctors in India is a developing epidemic in itself and there needs to be stringent laws and strict law enforcement to ensure an optimum working environment for healthcare professionals in our country. It is truly disheartening to see Indian doctors on the brink of a major silent crisis, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and this is detrimental for the furtherance of a happy and healthy society.”

Elaborating further on how the single came about, G-Doc states, “We decided to collaborate and put this single together since The Spindoctor and myself have both been subjected to this kind of mental harassment over the past one year and music was a platform for us to help our peers who could be silent victims suffering. Sometimes we forget that even doctors need motivation and love just like the patients.”

An ongoing study by Indian Medical Association (IMA) reports that 75% of doctors in India have faced violence at some point of time in their life, and that 68.33% of the violence was committed by the patient’s attenders /escorts. Pointing out that the violence includes verbal abuse, telephonic threats, physical assault, murder, and arson, the IMA said the effects of such violent episodes extend longer than the experience itself, where most doctors report to have faced insomnia, depression, anxiety, and an inability to see their patients without any fear of violence.

For turntablist, content creator, DJ, and music producer Sanjay Meriya, his stage name The Spindoctor was meticulously picked by him when he began DJing at the start of the last decade. For the uninitiated, Meriya is a certified doctor who completed his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 2013 from Mumbai’s B.Y.L. Nair Hospital. He has established himself as a frontrunner in the genre of hip-hop, having performed at leading festivals in India like Nh7 Weekender, Sunburn, Vh1, Ziro Music Festival and more. The Spindoctor has officially remixed music for pop legends - Britney Spear and G-Easy as well as performed alongside international rapper -Tyga. Before The Spindoctor became a full-time DJ in 2017 and began dropping beats as part of Mumbai rapper DIVINE’s Gully Gang crew, he was out working in a village near Pune practicing medicine.

G-DOC aka Shangorav Mukherjee is a hip-hop artist, rapper and MBBS doctor originally from Indore whose goal is to bring change in perceptions through trying to achieve excellence in both fields; music and medicine.