FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- Breaking a bone can be a traumatizing experience for a child. Even after making it through visits to the doctor, x-rays and having a cast put on, recovery can take weeks and the cast must be properly cared for to ensure optimal healing.
Staff Sgt. Shareef Stokely, an orthopedic technician at Guthrie Ambulatory Health Care Clinic, has made it his personal mission to put a smile on the face of each of his young patients, and he has an interesting way of helping them to remember how to care for their casts.
"I call it the Cast Rules Jingle," Stokely said. "It's a rap that I made up to help patients remember the steps to follow to take care of their cast."
The rap gives young patients instructions about keeping their cast clean and dry and about caring for their injury as it heals. It reminds cast wearers never to put anything inside their cast and instructs them on what to do if there is any swelling.
"Don't hate, just elevate," Stokely raps. "Don't sign the papers to send me to Ricki Lake. Just elevate for 15 minutes, and if that don't work you can come back to the clinic."
Stokely said that the jingle helps to lighten the mood, and that delivering the information in the form of a rap song makes it more fun and memorable for children.
Rap music has always been a part of his life, he said.
"I grew up listening to Big Daddy Kane and Wu Tang Clan," he said. "Listening to music was just a part of our everyday lives."
Stokely said that as a teen, he tried to create his own rap lyrics, but he didn't have a lot of life experience to draw upon at that time.
Born in Brooklyn, Stokely and his younger brother moved to Eastover, S.C., when he was 5 years old. He was raised by his grandmother and his aunt, and while he admitted his childhood wasn't easy, Stokely said he was grateful for the positive role these two ladies played in his life.
Having been raised in a loving, Christian home was a blessing to him, but Stokely jokes that it made it hard to write rap lyrics.
"Being raised in a Christian home, I wasn't used to cursing," he said. "Rap, at that time, was all about cursing and I wasn't comfortable with that. It's also hard to talk about things that are relevant and interesting at that age. I wasn't a thug or anything like that. I didn't really live in the ghetto."
Years later, while enrolled in a local community college, Stokely made a decision that would change his life.
"I was running back and forth between two campuses and working at Shoney's," he recalled. "I just got tired. At that time, I was working out a lot, and a young lady said to me 'you look like a Soldier.'"
"I decided to join," he said. "I told my recruiter 'I don't want to shoot people and I don't really want to jump out of planes. I just want to help people.'"
Although his only experience in taking care of the medical needs of others came from caring for his grandmother in the year before she died, Stokely decided to become a medic.
"I really liked it," he said. "I liked caring for people, so when my sergeant told me 'hey, I'm going to be an orthopedic technician,' I looked into it.
Stokely's GT score did not meet the minimum requirements that would allow him to enter this field, so he went back to school, studied hard and retook the test. He passed.
His first duty station as an orthopedic technician was Fort Drum. It was during this first assignment that Stokely had an important realization about patient care.
"I had this patient named Shawn," Stokely said. "I put on his cast and explained to him what was going on. I talked to him -- not just his parents. Later, his parents wrote a compliment, saying that was the best care they had ever had."
He said it changed the way he thought about patient care.
"Patient care is basically customer service," he said. "If you just talk to someone directly and let them know what to expect, it really helps."
Stokely expanded this idea about patient care while stationed at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii.
"It was very busy in Hawaii," he said. "I figured out that if you can take people's minds off the fact that they're waiting, they're a lot happier."
He and some of his co-workers began talking with patients as they waited to be seen by the medical staff, and they even performed small skits or told jokes.
"It was almost like doing stand-up," he said. "We noticed that the patients really liked it."
While listening to a co-worker list the cast care instructions to a young patient at a comically fast pace, Stokely got an idea. He wanted to create a rap consisting of cast care instructions.
"(My wife and I) took leave to come home and visit her Family," he said. "While I was on the plane, I started writing the lyrics."
Stokely said it took him quite a while to memorize the rap. It took him even longer to get up the courage to perform the lyrics for the first time.
"I had to just go for it," he said. "I had to remind myself that not everybody's going to like it. Once you get over that, it's a lot easier."
Stokely began performing the rap regularly for young patients. He said the response was overwhelmingly positive.
"The kids loved it, and parents love it when their kids are happy," he said. "When people see that you are good with their children, they will trust you and feel more comfortable."
Stokely went on to serve at Fort Dix, N.J., performing physical examinations for Soldiers. He deployed as a medic for a military transition team, and then returned to Fort Drum, where he served as a medic at the Aviation Consolidated Aid Station. In each of these roles, he made it a priority to provide excellent customer service to his patients, but he missed working with children.
When Stokely heard through connections that Fort Drum was looking for a noncommissioned officer in charge for Guthrie, he was thrilled.
"I started talking with people, and … I got the job," he said. "I was excited to be able to work with kids again."
On April 14, Stokely put a pink cast on a young patient who had broken her leg. Hearing that Stokely had an interesting manner of delivering cast instructions, the girl's mother recorded a video of his rap. Stokely said he didn't think anything of it until he arrived at work the next day.
"One of my close friends from the clinic called and said 'people are looking for you,'" he said.
The mother had posted the video online, and it quickly went viral. Representatives from NBC's "Today" show set up an interview, and Stokely was on live television the next day.
His supervisor, Maj. Brian Carr, said that he was not surprised that others took notice of the excellent care that Stokely provides on a daily basis.
"Staff Sgt. Stokely is a fantastic human being," Carr said. "His priority is to make the patients feel better, and he routinely goes well above and beyond in his practice. That's how he has always been -- he does what he does because the patients and staff love it, not because he (hoped he) would someday be recognized for it."
Just when the media coverage began to die down, Stokely received an email from Command Sgt. Maj. Donna Brock, senior enlisted adviser of U.S. Army Medical Command. Shortly thereafter, he received a letter from Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, U.S. Army surgeon general and commanding general of U.S. Army Medical Command, commending his efforts.
"That was amazing," Stokely said. "Nothing like that has ever happened to me."
Stokely was shocked when he was contacted by the Surgeon General's Office yet again.
"They asked me to do a rap about the Performance Triad," he said. "I reminded everybody -- you know, the whole rapping thing -- I do that for children."
Stokely said he was nervous to write a rap that was geared toward the Soldier population. He studied the key components of the Performance Triad and began to write.
"It was the most pressure I've ever had," he said. "I had to try and find a beat, I had to think about how I could relate the material to everyday stuff -- it was tough."
Slowly but surely, the lyrics began to come together. In the rap, Stokely encouraged Soldiers to take get enough rest, to eat right and to exercise. He also encourages them to disconnect from electronic devices to spend more time with their Families and to get a better night's rest.
"Ease into it -- bring your Family along for the lifestyle change," Stokely raps.
After completing the Performance Triad rap, Stokely said he was relieved to go back to everyday life outside the spotlight.
"I can get back to doing my job," he said. "It was great to get to do something big, but I was ready to go back to doing what I love -- working with my patients."
Carr said he is grateful to be able to work side by side with such a dedicated Soldier. He lauded Stokely's ability to make a personal connection with patients, while working within a fast-paced, often high-stress environment.
"Stokely brings enormous value to MEDDAC through patient care, simply because he genuinely cares for the patients," he said. "He has found a small way to make a big impact."
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