BWH's Staff Musicians- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
BWH's Staff Musicians- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
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February 25, 2000
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In This Issue:
BWH's Staff Musicians
BWH/Faulkner Help Patients Trim Down
Obituary
Information age at BWH
Pike Notes
Teen Health Center Celebrates
For sixteen years, the Longwood Symphony Orchestra has drawn Boston-area physicians, hospital staff, and medical students to its concerts—but not as audience members. The musicians in this 90-person orchestra are themselves the caregivers and students from all across Boston’s three medical schools and 18 hospitals. For three hours a week and in four concerts a year, the LSO performs classical music to benefit health-related community organizations. “The musicianship is outstanding,” says John-Patrick Bagnal, MD, a resident in Anesthesiology at BWH who has been playing the French horn for 18 years. Bagnal is one of nine members of the BWH family whose musical talents equal their professional ones. In fact the quality of the orchestra is such that Jonathan McPhee, conductor of the Boston Ballet Orchestra, guest-conducted LSO’s most recent concert in December. Cellist Bion Tsang will join the LSO as a guest artist for the orchestra’s up-coming concert on March 4. The concerts LSO performs directly benefit Boston-area and national non-profit foundations that meet the orchestra’s mission. More than $50,000 is raised annually for health, research, and community-service organizations. In addition, tickets are set aside for people with various chronic illnesses who often attend the concerts that benefit research for improved care of their particular diseases. Even the orchestra’s physicians feel the effects of music’s medicine. “After a long day in the operating room, I am able to turn off the analytical side of my brain and just concentrate on making music,” says Bagnal. Bassoonist Stephen Wright, MD, vice-chair of Medicine at BWH and chief of Medicine at Faulkner Hospital, adds, “Everyone in the room shares the same experience in their professional lives. It can take some time to let that tension go, but soon after rehearsal begins, the pressures begin to melt for all of us. Being in this orchestra helps all of us achieve balance in our lives.” The creative, non-analytical experience of playing music doesn’t end with the rehearsal or performance. Says Wright, “Physicians who develop dimensions of themselves outside the practice of medicine are better able to bring humanity to their practice of medicine.” In addition to Bagnal and Wright, BWH members of the LSO include Roger Caruk, Research; Wolfram Goessling, MD, PhD, Medicine; Tom Jacobs, Research; Peter Marks, MD, Hematology; Susan Pauker, MD, Genetics; Beth Thurberg MD, PhD, Pathology; and Lisa Wong, MD, Newborn Medicine. The LSO’s next concert takes place on March 4 at 8 p.m. at Jordan Hall and will benefit Dimock Community Health Center in Roxbury. For tickets or more information, call the LSO at 332-7011, or the Jordan Hall box office at 536-2412.