How I combine music and medicine.
As many of you know, I am a devoted choral musician. I have the honor of leading The Longwood Chorus, a 65-voice ensemble comprised of members of Boston’s health and science communities.
A few months ago, I did an interview for Medscape (no, not MedPage Today, which is my home when I’m not here on Inside Medicine) hosted by Dr. Neil Skolnik. Dr. Skolnik is a practicing physician and a serious guitarist. We covered a bit about my background in music and how I feel that this influences my medical career and practice. We also discussed how the Covid-19 pandemic briefly derailed my involvement with music—and the profound and deeply emotional moment when I let music back into my life.
The video of our interview also features a brief clip of me leading the end of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite with The World Doctors Orchestra, and my own composition for chamber chorus and cello, Winter is Past, which was premiered at the Harvard University Commencement Exercises in the spring of 2021.
The interview is aptly called “Medicine and Music: A Harmonious Journey.” It’s a good way to get to know “the real me.” Please take a look/listen (transcript included)!
If you are a musician in the medical/health/science world, I’d love you to share your experiences with that. Please add your comments below.
Lastly, if you are in medicine/health/science community and you’re a choral singer who lives in the Boston area, please join The Longwood Chorus! We’ll be having auditions in late August for our Fall season. The group is quite good (I must say!) and we always are looking to expand our wonderful and lively community.
My grandfather was a physician who served in WW II and played in a medical symphony in Chicago. It’s so important to have other interests.
Awesome. Neil Skolnik interviewed me at Abington while I was figuring out which family medicine residency programs to rank. Ultimately I stayed in center city Philly at Jefferson for residency, also where he trained. I’ll look forward to listening to this interview, and recall him being a really warm, talented, and well respected family doc!
If anyone in the Philly area needs a drummer MD please let me know! I’ve been in the basement working through frustrations alone like Animal from the Muppets.