The surgeon relies on music to find the rhythm of medicine

The rhythm of life comes from many places. The rhythm of morning jogging. Factory machine roar. Trees sway in the evening breeze. For Dr. Stephen Standford, rhythm resonates from two different sources: music and medicine. Most days, you’ll find Dr. Standford in his position as chief physician and surgical oncologist at our Philadelphia hospital. Other times, he plays Mason & Hamlin’s classical grand piano, plays ragtime and Dixieland or appears at the popular Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival, an annual event in Sedalia, Missouri. Along the way, Dr. Standford discovered the balance that allowed him to excel in both profession and hobby, finding “a lot of common ground between the two,” he says. “You have to learn to think quickly, whether it’s during a musical performance or a process. In music, you hear many things happening at the same time, an essential talent in medicine.”

Finding rhythm in medicine

“If you think about it, how much percussion is there in medicine?” Asked. “There is a heartbeat. There is regular breathing. And we pay attention to the irregular heartbeat or breathing. But also in the operating room, there is a rhythm and there is a flow. There is a beeping beep from the screen, that I am always listening. And if I hear a sound that changes, the rhythm is a little different, I look up and make sure everything is OK. What’s the difference? What’s going on?”

As a child growing up in New Jersey, Dr. Standford’s path in the medical profession was established. He says, “I don’t belong to a family of doctors, but there are pictures of me as a kid with a stethoscope around my neck. But then, I had a slight deviation and almost became a musician. Some rock bands and a trio. I played in a country band and a polka band. It was The polka band is great. It was $40 a night, which was a good amount in 1974. But when a 1967 Impala rides with a flawless fender and the guy who leads the band is excited just because the car is working, maybe he should find something safer.”

Communicating with patients

Dr.. Standford has been playing ragtime piano since 1972. The next year’s movie The StingWith the music of ragtime legend Scott Joplin, he created a huge demand for the music genre. “I was really playing this stuff and immediately got a job,” says Dr. Standford. “It made a music fan famous. He would go out to play three or four nights a week because everyone wanted ragtime.” But in 1977, the music waned when Dr. Standiford enrolled in medical school and completed internships and residencies. His loves intersected again years later, when his medical career took him to Missouri, the birthplace of ragtime and home of the Joplin Festival. “I started going to the Scott Joplin Festival and then playing at the Scott Joplin Festival,” he says. “And I was there this year performing during my nineteenth year.” According to his biography of the festival, Dr. Standiford wears many hats at the festival, including “piano solo, tuba, singing or playing second piano… Serve as the master of festivities, or generally enjoy the music and all our ragtime friends. . “

Dr. Standiford often uses music to communicate and connect with patients, some of whom have volunteered to sing with him or bring a guitar and play a duet. Others watched him play in one of his various YouTube videos. For patients who are inclined to music or play an instrument, Dr. Standford looks for other ways to connect and learn what makes each one unique. “If I know something is musical, I make sure to bring it into the equation,” he says. “I make sure every patient I see knows something strange about them, because they know I’m communicating with them and that gives me a way to remember what’s so special about this patient.”

Learn more about mind-body medicine, including music therapy.