BLOG: Music is medicine for the soul
A few months ago, I was having lunch at Sparrow Hospital when I heard someone playing the grand piano that sits in the hallway outside the cafeteria, on the way to the emergency room.
I was mesmerized. I thought I recognized the piece. Perhaps “One Man’s Dream,” by Yanni?
I left the table where I was sitting and sat at one of the tables scattered in the hallway by the piano. I waited until the player finished.
I applauded, as did a few people who were sitting nearby or who were passing by and stopped to listen. The pianist was a young man in his early 20s, wearing the famous red T-shirt Sparrow volunteers wear. He had a Sparrow badge: His name was Kairo.
“Are you playing Yanni?” I asked.
“No, that was Yiruma,” he answered.
Like other hospitals, Sparrow recruits volunteers from the community to help with small tasks, such as wheeling patients from the lobby to various locations in the hospital, or from the floors to the lobby as patients are discharged. Many of these volunteers are college students or recent graduates who aspire to become physicians.
I introduced myself to Kairo, and I expressed my admiration of his excellent playing.
“How long have you been playing the piano?” I asked.
“Since I was 5,” he answered. He added that his mother, a pianist herself, taught him to play early in his childhood.
Then I asked him about his name, “Kairo.” Is it from Cairo, Egypt?
“Yes,” he said. His father liked Cairo a lot and named him after the city. But Kairo is not sure why his dad had spelled the name with a “K” rather than a “C.”
“Have you heard of Yanni?” I asked.
“A little,” he answered.
I Googled the piece I was referring to and played it for him: It was a small piece from Yanni’s “One Man’s Dream.” Kairo agreed it was very similar to Yiruma’s piece.
I asked Kairo about his volunteer work at Sparrow.
“My dream is to become a doctor,” he said.
Kairo had just finished his undergraduate degree in kinesiology and pre-medicine, and he is deeply ambitious to enter medical school. He recently sat for the MCAT.
“If I teach you medicine, would you teach me piano?” I asked with a smile.
“Of course,” he answered.
At the time, I was looking for research assistants to help with recruiting patients for an ongoing study. The study is an intriguing innovation: In collaboration with Robin Tucker, PhD, RD, a dietitian and assistant professor at MSU’s department of food science and human nutrition, we are testing a training model of sleep hygiene. This is an innovative model that Dr. Tucker developed in collaboration with other researchers, and our hypothesis is that people with type 2 diabetes and obesity who have poor sleep quality/quantity may see improvement in HbA1c if they improve their sleep pattern. This concept stems from the observation that poor sleep results in elevated cortisol and other physiological factors that worsen weight and glucose.
In the weeks that followed, Kairo joined our research team and received IRB and HIPAA training. After completing his MCAT, he started coming to the clinic to recruit patients for the study, per his work schedule. Kairo has a part-time job at a center for physical therapy and rehab.
I promised Kairo to help him as much as I can to fulfill his dream of becoming a doctor.
And Kairo made his promise to teach me piano: He gave me the first lesson on the beautiful piano that he has in his apartment earlier in the summer.
But of course, we both were very busy with life and work. We did not have more lessons. I am perhaps too old to learn piano; I am not sure if I will be able to learn it.
Like Kairo’s dream to become a doctor, I have a dream. My own dream is to be able to play Yanni’s songs. I dream to play “Felitsa,” “Until the last Moment” and “One Man’s Dream.”
As readers know, I have a special connection to Yanni’s music, detailed in a prior post.
Kairo has become, like me, a fan of Yanni’s music. He started listening to Yanni’s songs, and he also expressed the desire to learn two songs, “One Man’s Dream” and “Until the Last Moment.” For the last few weeks, he has been training on the latter song.
Earlier this month, after I finished hospital rounding, I was passing the cafeteria hallway, when I spotted Kairo sitting on the volunteers’ desk.
I asked him if he finished learning “Until the Last Moment.” He said he has almost learned it, apart from a small section at the end.
The picture (Figure) shows the grand piano. As can be read in the poster attached to the piano, it was dedicated in honor of John Armstrong, MD, a retired critical care specialist in the Lansing community.
On the poster, there is a quote I love: “Music and laughter are like medicine for the soul.”
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