Music, Medicine, and the Art of Listening
Peter van Roessel, Stanford University School of Medicine
Audrey Shafer, Stanford University School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System

Download the Paper (PDF format) - March 20, 2007 Tell a colleague about it. Printing Tips: Select 'print as image' in the Acrobat print dialog if you have trouble printing. This work has been peer reviewed.

ABSTRACT:
The use of the arts in medical education has become increasingly widespread. Narrative and visual media, in particular, have received great attention as tools for teaching skills of empathy, observation and reflection. Music, however, has been relatively less applied in this context, and may be perceived as lacking immediate relevance to medicine. In this article, we first review various areas of interface between music and medicine. We then describe a curricular innovation undertaken at our institution using musical performance to demonstrate the value of music as a metaphor for communication in the practice of medicine.