Healing Music
Supports musicians in providing soothing music to patients in our hospital Learn More
Fundraising: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Inc.
Donations go to:
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Inc. (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit)
With our research on diseases and treatments, we are helping to improve medicine every day. Our doctors train Harvard Medical School students to become physicians, making this a place where everyone learns new ideas.
We are committed to the health and well-being of people in our region, including those who otherwise would not have access to good health care. To ensure the best care for all of our patients, we work together with their primary care and specialty doctors.
Recent Cause Activity
Before I came to know of this cause music was already being played in our hospital in Phuket Thailand. I have seen its benefits and I do support the cause.
Before I came to know of this cause music was already being played in our hospital in Phuket Thailand. I have seen its benefits and I do support the cause.
8 days ago
Harp…In a Hospital?
By Katie McQuade RN
Names are not real to protect identity
As the nurse, I was experiencing a typical shift on medical-surgical floor at a large urban academic medical center. Alarms were going off, call lights were ringing and I was moving in a sea of activity. I had no idea I would receive such a powerful gift when my shift began. This gift would be given in the form of music.
That day I cared two patients that were having issues with pain.
The first was a 78 year old woman named Barbara. While crossing a street, she was hit by a car. This was a huge event for this otherwise healthy woman. With a broken hip and a ruptured spleen, she found herself in an extremely compromised medical situation. .
Barbara’s pain was both physical and emotional. The tangible pain in her hip was treated with a pain medication. The other pain was in her spirit. Barbara was depressed and exhausted. She even told me that she was afraid that she wouldn’t go on. You can imagine how heartbreaking this was. I spent as much time with her as I could, but with a five patient load, I kept getting pulled away. In my best efforts, I carried out all the appropriate medical interventions and gave her all that I had to offer. This wasn’t enough to soothe her where she most needed it, at the level of the spirit.
My second patient, Gigi, experienced chronic pain. She had been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia years before. The disease plagued Gigi with body aches and generalized body discomforts. Four hours into my shift, Gigi had exhausted available options for pain medications and she was agitated and uncomfortable. I empathized with her frustration but I also had my own. I wasn’t able to help her relax. I spent as much time with her as I could, trying to be supportive, but my attempts were not working.
At this point, I have 1 hour left with Barbara and Gigi and I can’t help either of them relax. It is important to note that I have found myself in similar situations with my patients in the past. Why is it, with all the advanced technology and complex medical interventions that are offered, that we are still unable to comfort our patients in the most basic way?
How do we treat the soul? Perhaps, music is an answer to the question.
Seven hours into my shift I see my beautiful friend Nancy. Nancy has been playing the harp in the halls of the hospital for a couple of years. Walking through the halls on a weekday afternoon, you can hear the soothing sound echoing through the medical center. It is a situation that is dichotomous in the most beautiful way. Hospitals are usually associated with sterility. In contrast the harp offers music and art. I am always surprised at my ease the minute I hear the music.
Nancy had been playing her harp in the lobby that day and had encountered Barbara’s granddaughter. She asked Nancy if she would play for her grandmother. I quickly took Nancy into Barbara’s room. I thought it might also help Gigi to listen to the harp. Nancy and Barbara were happy to have the extra company.
Then a miracle happened.
All four of us sat in the room. Nancy began to play the harp and immediately, the environment was transformed. What was once a cold and beeping hospital room became a room filled with warm ambience and comforting sound. The harp cascaded along the spectrum of tones, and we were all stilled.
I watched Barbara’s eyes close. Her lips had a soft smile and tears began to stream down her face. As her breathing slowed her heart rate came down, as did her blood pressure. She lay comfortably in her bed wrapped in a cocoon sound.
I was most amazed at Gigi’s response to the music. Initially, she sat in the room squirming in pain, agitated and complaining. As the music began, her eyes welled with tears, she laid her hands calmly on her lap and closed her eyes. I watched Gigi’s face soften in a way that I hadn’t seen all shift.
As a nurse, I had spent hours that day executing various medical interventions and administering medications. I realized that perhaps this music was calming my patients more than medications could. Indeed, music might actually be helping to heal my patients in a way I could not quite see or articulate.
Sound in the hospital setting is guaranteed. Unfortunately, the abruptness of alarms and the urgency of the call lights are the only noises that dance with our senses. Imagine how these aggressive noises affect a patient who is in pain.
Nancy’s music is inserting art and grace into a complex medical environment that is desperately in need of soothing.
I was fortunate to observe the miracle that occurred that day on the medical surgical floor. I, too, was in need of the music. It reminded me of why I became a nurse. As a nurse, my main objective is to help patients achieve a state of calm and peace that is similar to that of which Nancy’s music did.