Defining the profession of bedside musician

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim has written an eye-opening feature in the NY Times on the growing recognition for musicians who play for patients in hospital, and the development of professional standards.

…on a brisk January morning in Baltimore in the old boardroom at Johns Hopkins Hospital… I sat in on a peer supervision session of professional bedside artists. These musicians, all faculty members at the Peabody Institute, are part of a nationwide trend to bring the arts into health care settings.

Sarah Hoover, the associate dean at Peabody who started the program at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2018, calls this kind of work “music as care.” Unlike music therapy, in which licensed practitioners use music to achieve specific clinical objectives, she said, “this work addresses the whole person, not just the medical need.”

Music in health care often requires dramatic shifts in priorities, especially for anyone trained in the classical conservatory tradition. Instead of virtuosity, textual fidelity and the pursuit of excellence, music making around vulnerable people calls on a mix of ethical values and social skills — chief among them the Hippocratic injunction to do no harm.

The consent of the patient or visiting family members is crucial. I thought back to the moans I had heard during my concert. Had I considered the possibility that it was the sound of my instrument that was causing distress?…

This is marvellous, mature, astute journalistic observation. Read on here.

pictured; Igor Levit playing in Tel Aviv hospital

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